Nigeria, March 5 -- Poor access to finance has been identified as a major hindrance to the growth and development of the Nigerian mining sector, according to the President of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS), Akinade Olatunji.

Mr Olatunji, in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, noted that the current financing model in the sector is not sustainable.

"Because we don't have a mining ecosystem that is mature, it's difficult for people to get finance. So, financing the sector has been more of ad-hoc, family kind of borrowing and all that stuff, and that's not sustainable. You can also not run mining activity with a kind of two-digit interest rate we run Nigeria. Nobody does that anywhere in the world," Mr Olatunji said.

He e...