Author: The Nation

In Zamfara, the Kadauri gold fields loom like artisanal dystopia. Think of it as the glitter belt where little boys toil, chained to manly lust.  

The children, caught between the womb wall of lower earth and the dazzle of proverbial Midas’ spoils, illustrate embowered servitude in open fields.

The boys are many and dispensable inside the mine pits of Kaudari in Maru, Anka, among other local councils. Far from the confines of their barely populated classrooms, they write their dreams in shiny beads of sweat: the indelible ink of their brow. It’s the only way that their absence from school could mean something.

Scores of out-of-school kids, mostly boys, litter the dusty tract digging for gold. A dirt pan assures a full plate to their starving bellies. Thus they defy the heat, obstinate souls accustomed to searing whipping from the sun.

If they aren’t deterred by the scorching heat of the mine pits, how can they recoil from the gold fields over the threat of a distant public officer?

On September 3, 2023, the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, issued a 30-day ultimatum to artisanal miners engaged in illegal mining nationwide to join cooperatives or find another vocation. He said, “On the expiration of the period, the full weight of the law will fall on anyone seen on a mining site without a determinable status.”

Alake’s threat to crack down on illegal miners, however, hardly deters the underage gold prospectors perhaps because it doesn’t summarily address them. Mubaraq Baballe (11), Naziru Aliyu (13), and Naziru (eight), for instance, belch a narrative only hunger could reveal.

Shouldering aplomb like a steel amour, the minors feverishly dig the earth and shovel sludge every day, hoping to hit pay-dirt. They have been at it for over four years, hunting for gold amid the dusty plains of Kadauri.

The hope of hitting pay-dirt and earning between N500 and N1,000 (less than $1) for their efforts is overpowering. 

Many of them have never been to school. They slave away at the various mine pits every day; when they get lucky, they give their earnings to their parents “to buy food.”

There is a backstory to each boy’s presence in the Kadauri gold field. The recurrent strain recounts how poverty and hunger render them vulnerable to older associates and paymasters in Zamfara’s illicit network of artisanal miners.

The latter use them as mules and errand boys in an illicit network that cost Nigeria about $2 billion annually and over N353 billion in losses in gold smuggled out of the country between 2016 and 2018, according to the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) audits and reports from international sources.

The mineral-rich earth of Zamfara offers child miners several opportunities to make a quick buck. It’s a perilous keep, fraught with attacks by armed bandits prowling the region and toxic lead deposits in the soil.

Despite the obvious perils, the dazzle of Kadauri’s gold belt lures the boys to turn up every day, armed with a shovel, a can-do spirit and a dirt pan.

Alake’s warning bears no resonance among the child miners perhaps because they do not understand the magnitude of their work as ”outlaws.” A lack of compliance with his 30-day ultimatum made him grant another 30-day extension even as he warned that from October, a security task force would become active in the solid minerals sector and illegal miners would be prosecuted.

Still, illegal mining persists. This may be blamed on the lack of effective regulation and punishment for flouting them. Miffed by their daring, the Governor of Zamfara, Dauda Lawal, on Sunday, September 23, issued a ban on illegal mining activities in the state and ordered law enforcers to shoot illegal miners at sight, claiming that such stringent action has become necessary to end the destructive activity and ensure the well-being of the people.

Hundreds of people have been killed or kidnapped by bandits in Zamfara in the wake of a previous ban imposed by former Governor Bello Matawalle, and several miners relocated from Zamfara to less policed hubs of artisanal mining in Niger and Osun States.

In their absence, field leaders contract underage boys to fill the vacuum created in the artisanal gold mines thus accentuating their predicament as part of the 10.5 million out-of-school children in Nigeria – 30 per cent are in the North-West (Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kano) and Niger States in the North Central region.

Read Also: Alake tours agencies under Solid Minerals ministry

To cushion the huge foreign exchange revenue loss from gold smuggling, the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari launched the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMDI), an artisanal and small-scale gold mining development programme meant to diversify the country’s revenue base.

Initial forecasts held that the PAGMI initiative could add about $500 million annually to Nigeria’s foreign reserves, and contribute $150 million in taxes and $25 million in royalties.

To guarantee the seamless actualisation of set goals, the federal government licensed two refineries to refine gold to the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA).

Under the arrangement, the government was expected to buy directly from small-scale miners at designated hubs in their villages, while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) buys directly from the state government.

This was meant to prevent the locals from selling extracted gold to bandits and other illegal operators. The plan is yet to materialise to the advantage of all identified stakeholders.

And neither Alake’s ultimatum nor Governor Lawal’s resort to hard power would resolve Zamfara’s illegal mining conundrum until stakeholders address the difficulty posed by the teeming army of underage boys scattered across the gold fields of Zamfara and other mining hot spots in the country.

The government must work with other stakeholders to address the structural and institutional factors such as rural poverty and difficulties in meeting legal and regulatory requirements that tend to push artisanal gold mining operators deeper into the informal economy – where child miners become instant, defenceless tools for illegal miners and bandits.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that about one million children work in mines and quarries. However, the actual number is deemed higher as the proportion of child miners in some countries is estimated to be as high as 30 to 50 per cent of the workforce.

In Zamfara, many such children work in extreme conditions in remote areas like Kadauri and other parts of Maru LGA. Children work in ore extraction and assist in drilling. They push carts, clean galleries, and remove water from the mines. They crush stones, haul minerals, pick gemstones, and wash gold.

They descend to the bowels of the earth to crawl through narrow, cramped, and poorly lit makeshift tunnels, where the air is thick with dust and smothering. They constantly risk fatal accidents due to falling rocks, explosions, collapse of mine walls, and the use of equipment designed for adults. It’s a very scary situation which could trigger another health crisis reminiscent of Zamfara’s lead poisoning disaster of 2010.

Experts warned that the 2010 epidemic may persist in the environment for up to 15 years resulting in long-term health problems including permanent learning and behavioural problems, and brain damage.

But the child miners of Kadauri are oblivious to such dangers. Their struggles blend into the toxic underbelly of their dreams and the vague promise of a better tomorrow.