Olamilekan Adegbite is Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals and Steel Development

The Federal Government, yesterday, took delivery of two aircraft to kick-start airborne geophysical activities for aerial survey and data collection in 19 states.

Numbered ZS-XAS and ZS-XAR, the planes, which are the first batch of the deliveries, were procured from Xcalibur Multiphysics Company in South Africa.

Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, while inspecting the airplanes at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, explained that the facilities would boost the knowledge of airborne geophysical survey activities to acquire data on minerals in the country.

He advised residents not to be frightened by the aircraft movements, explaining that they would be flying 50 metres in the air.

The minister said the survey “is meant to determine the accurate mineral locations using modern-day contemporary magnetic and radiometric method.”

Adegbite observed that the project would hold during the dry season.

He said: “If they are flying and it starts raining, they will have to come down and park. This is because water will disturb the data that they are going to acquire.

“This is part of a programme to acquire data on the minerals in Nigeria. It’s the basic method of acquiring data through geophysical measurement. The facilities are special aircraft with equipment in them to monitor sudden parameters on the ground, and they have to do when it’s dry.

“The recording equipment are translated onto computers that will interpret them, which will give us data that can be utilised. It is part of the Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification (MINDIVER) Project, a World Bank-assisted project under the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.”

Speaking on behalf of the South African firm, Dr. John Eyre stated that the company would search the signatures of all categories of minerals, particularly metallic, gold and silver.