Discredited Jupiter plots campaign of calumny during Tinubu’s UK visit

Alake

By KEMI KAYODE

It has come to the attention of the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (MSMD) that an embattled mining firm, Jupiter Ltd, plans to orchestrate a campaign of calumny against the Federal Government of Nigeria during the state visit of President Bola Tinubu to the United Kingdom.

Earlier in the week, the Special Adviser to the Minister of Solid Minerals Kehinde Bamigbetan, authored a robust response to a tissue of falsehoods sponsored by Jupiter Ltd in a publication titled “Nigeria Seizes British Lithium Project Under Armed Guard.”

Our response, titled “In Nigeria’s Mining Sector, The Law Is No Respecter of Persons,” exposed the antics of one Steve Davis and Hamish MacDonald, whose deceitful enterprise in the mining sector eventually met the full weight of the law.

We made it unequivocally clear that the allegations are baseless and unfounded. The Federal Government, through the Ministry and the Nigeria Mining Cadastral Office (NMCO), has no legal or contractual relationship with any company known as Jupiter Lithium, as the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act (NMMA 2007) expressly prohibits the granting of mining licences to foreign companies.

The bone of contention is the strict application of regulations governing the mining sector, which necessitated the revocation of mineral titles belonging to a Nigerian company, Basin Mining Ltd, fronted by the said Mr. Davis, an Australian national. The revocation was done after due notice was served on the company in line with extant laws on default in payment of annual service fees.

Hence, the mineral titles were revoked due to failure to pay statutory annual service fees amounting to Two Billion, Four Hundred and Ninety-Four Million Naira (₦2,494,000,000) for mineral titles 45454ML, 45117ML, 45118ML, 40532ML, and 40533ML for the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years.