The Federal Executive Council (FEC) Wednesday approved the establishment of a committee to review the laws guiding the control of explosives in the country.
Minister of Defence Mr Mohammed Badaru said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said the committee was set up to determine if the country’s explosives’ laws were violated by miners whose activities led to Tuesday’s deadly explosion in Ibadan.
“In today’s deliberation, the explosion in Ibadan was raised and the government sympathised with the victims and the very good people of Oyo State.
“And currently investigation is ongoing to find out the real cause of the blast and to see how best we can prevent it happening in the future.
“After that, there is the issue of environmental protection as well as mining, areas protection and forest protection were discussed and a committee was set by Mr. President.
“That includes all the security agencies, Minister of Environment, Ministry of solid minerals to look into all these issues, and see how we can provide lasting solution to stop the issues that centers around environmental degradation both in our forests and the mining sites. And also the rampant illegal mining and the control of earthing in the mining sector,” he said.
The minister also reacted to Governor Seye Makinde’s revelation that the explosion was caused by explosives stored by illegal miners, stressing that there were suspicions in some quarters that the incident was occasioned by gas explosion.
He said federal government’s agents have been deployed to ascertain the cause of the incident and provide ways to prevent future occurrence.
