Nigeria commissions National Geodata Centre
The Federal Government of Nigeria has commissioned the National Geodata Centre (NGC) at the headquarters of the Nigerian Geological Survey (NGSA) in Abuja.
Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite, who performed the commissioning process, stated that the geodata centre will attract local and international investors into the mining sector by providing a long-term national geoscience knowledge base that is essential for identifying a country’s mineral potential.
Geoscience knowledge
The centre which was executed by the World Bank-assisted MINDIVER Project, will also make mining data accessible online, enabling investors to access information without visiting the ministry. The geodata centre will create a modern digital accessible infrastructure that would be domiciled at the NGSA, with a focus on data relevant to the mineral sector.
The NGC will be linked with its two arms in Kaduna, i.e. the NGSA office there, and then the National Steel Raw Materials Development Agency. The federal government has attached much importance to the NGC and has contracted the British Geological Survey (BGS), UK, to establish the infrastructure that provides security, resilience, access to mining investors, researchers, development experts, and the general public.
“A geo-data centre represents the long term national geoscience knowledge base essential for identifying the mineral potentialities of a country. Most notable mining countries, such as Australia, Canada, and Namibia in Africa are doing well because investors have access to geodata. It is common knowledge that mining companies of many countries are willing to choose, and they decide where to go and invest based on the availability of data, so as to minimise their risk and, of course, maximise their profit,” said the minister.
