Hey folks, guess what? According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), a whopping 238 companies owe the Federal Government about N1.06bn in annual service fees. That’s a whole lot of money, isn’t it? The NEITI Industry report for the Solid Minerals Industry for 2021 spilled the beans on this, and it’s causing quite a stir. The report revealed that the amount owed by these companies shot up from N654.28m in 2020 to N1.06bn in 2021. That’s a big jump, if you ask me! Out of a total of 1,214 companies operating in the sector, only 914 paid royalties. And get this, out of the 914 that made royalty payments, 121 companies were responsible for a whopping 92 per cent of the total royalty payments. That’s a whole lot of cash flowing in, folks! The total receipts by federal, states, and local government agencies from the mining sector in 2021 was a staggering N193.59bn. That’s a whole lotta money, right? And here’s a fun fact – a total of 2,045 licences were issued during the year, and the total mineral production was a whopping 76,277,187 tons. That’s a whole lotta rocks and sand, if you ask me! The report also highlighted the major players in the mining sector, with Dangote, BUA, and Lafarge leading the pack. These companies contributed a combined production quantity and royalty payment of 41,438,553 tons and N1.37bn respectively. Now that’s what I call a major contribution! The report also revealed that Ogun, Kogi, and Edo were the top three states in terms of mineral production. Ogun took the lead with a whopping 17.5 million tons, followed by Kogi with 16.3 million tons, and Edo with 8 million tons. That’s a whole lotta rocks, folks! Dr Ogbonnaya Orji, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, mentioned that the 2021 revenue flows of N193.59bn showed an increase of N60.32bn or 51.89 per cent compared to the 2020 revenue flows of N116.82bn. That’s some serious growth, isn’t it? But he also pointed out that the 2021 figure was still not up to par considering the potential of the sector to the Nigerian economy. And guess what? The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abass, thinks this report is key to cleaning up the extractive sector and boosting job creation and revenue generation. That’s some serious talk, folks!