Across the gold belts stretching from Niger through Kaduna to Zamfara, artisanal mining—once a humble livelihood—has morphed into a perilous enterprise fuelling banditry and extremism. Forests and abandoned villages now conceal armed camps, while gold extracted from remote pits finances weapons, logistics and recruitment. Communities live under siege, farmlands lie fallow, and governance gaps allow criminal networks to thrive, turning mineral wealth into a deadly engine of insecurity across the Northwest, reports ABDULGAFAR ALABELEWE.
Across the gold belts stretching from Niger State through Kaduna to Zamfara, a quiet but dramatic infiltration has tightened its grip. What began as small, community-run artisanal mining—marked by crude tools, modest yields and the hope of survival—has transformed into a criminally engineered enterprise. The pits that once sustained rural families have become the economic engine rooms of bandit groups and extremist factions, reshaping local livelihoods and fuelling a dangerous underground economy.
In Birnin-Gwari, one of the most volatile mining zones in Kaduna State, this shift is stark. As traditional miners withdrew due to rising insecurity, new actors—better connected, better armed and deeply intertwined with bandit networks—moved in. Their arrival opened the door for bandits, and later Ansaru militants, to embed themselves fully into the mining chain. What followed was the conversion of mining pits into controlled criminal enclaves governed by taxation, extortion and violence.
Community sources and security observers say the belts have now matured into one of the most reliable revenue streams for armed groups operating across the Northwest. Gold extracted from pits in Birnin Gwari and the vast Kaduna–Niger forest corridor finances weapons, logistics, recruitment and the day-to-day maintenance of criminal camps. The pits also serve as camouflage, blending criminals among civilian miners and shielding their movements from routine surveillance.
Geography as an ally
Beyond the cash flow, geography itself strengthens these networks. Forests linking Birnin Gwari to Kuyambana, Kamuku and the Kaduna–Niger boundary form an interconnected web of natural citadels. These forests—dense, unmapped and largely inaccessible—provide the perfect cover for armoury storage, hostage holding and operational planning. Investigations show that within these forests lie kilometres of unmapped routes, enabling armed groups to strike with speed and melt away long before reinforcements arrive. This mobility advantage is one of the key reasons the groups remain resilient despite multiple military offensives over the years.
The crisis is deeply tied to Zamfara, which remains the epicentre of illegal mining driven by armed groups. Their movement from Zamfara into Kaduna and Niger has created a seamless criminal corridor stretching into Chikun, Shiroro and even parts of the North-Central region.
Communities living in fear
The human cost of this evolving criminal economy is devastating. In Birnin Gwari alone, more than 120 communities were displaced at the height of attacks, their homes abandoned and farmlands overrun by fear.
Although the Kaduna Peace Model has helped reclaim several communities and reopen key markets, vast areas remain unsafe. Some women who attempted to resume farming have been abducted after criminals tracked them back to their homes. Residents of Maganda and Doka describe life under a quiet siege—bandits moving calmly along forest paths, surveilling villages, choosing when to strike. Security forces have achieved important gains. Airstrikes have destroyed camps; ground troops have disrupted supply routes. Yet even security officials privately acknowledge that these victories remain fragile. The interconnected forests allow criminals to escape, regroup and return. Investigations have also uncovered troubling lapses in coordination among security agencies—delayed intelligence sharing, poorly synchronised operations and inter-state silos that allow bandits to exploit gaps.
The recent push by Northern Governors for a six-month suspension of mining—possibly extending to 12 months—is intended to allow for a thorough licence audit and revalidation. But can such a measure meaningfully disrupt criminal networks already entrenched in remote forests, far beyond the reach of routine regulation? For safety and security consultant for the Northwest, Ishaq Usman Kasai, the answer depends on what happens next. “Stopping mining alone will not solve the problem,” he said. Kasai argues that while illegal mining is only one of several revenue channels for armed groups, it remains significant enough to demand government urgency. Without disrupting their camps, financial pathways and supply routes, he warns, the groups may simply pause and resume once the suspension expires.
He emphasised the seamless mobility of armed groups across Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger. Kasai called for stronger interstate cooperation, improved intelligence management and a sustained offensive targeting not only fighters but also their logistics networks, arms suppliers and forest fortresses. Reinforcing borders, he added, is essential to block the flow of weapons and foreign fighters.
For communities to return safely, Kasai advocates rebuilding governance structures—health posts, schools, security outposts—and establishing clear policies on repentant fighters to avoid encouraging impunity.
A Kaduna-based journalist, who requested anonymity, shares similar convictions. He believes the suspension could significantly slow banditry—if government has the will to enforce it with decisive force. He describes the mining corridor across Niger, Kaduna and Zamfara as “largely ungoverned spaces,” where artisanal miners live at the mercy of roaming armed groups, while illegal large-scale mining operators enjoy protection bought through criminal alliances.
Drawing from field experience, the journalist recalls a 2016 incident when he joined then Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, on a visit to Kaduna. After initial meetings with licensed granite miners, the minister insisted on visiting Birnin Gwari Forest to observe reported artisanal mining activities. “I was on that trip as a reporter,” he said. “We saw artisanal miners digging in their zig-zag fashion, exposed to all kinds of risks, including collapses.” But the real shock lay deeper in the forest: a fully operational illegal foreign mining site.
Before the minister could arrive, the operators fled. Plans were immediately made to seize their equipment, hoping to force them into formal registration. Then danger erupted. “Bandits on motorcycles started advancing from deep inside the forest to attack the minister’s convoy. The security team ordered an immediate evacuation,” he recounted. The incident made one fact unmistakeably clear: criminal gangs were guarding illegal mining operations—and in some cases, likely armed or financed by them. “This clearly shows that bandits were protecting illegal miners. That is why any mining suspension must be followed by a decisive clearance operation to flush out bandits from forests across affected states.” For him, peace around the mining belt is impossible as long as illegal miners—local and foreign—keep enriching armed groups.
The gold belt feeding banditry and starving communities
In Niger State, the Local Government Areas of Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, and Mashegu have become epicentres of insecurity fuelled by illegal and artisanal gold mining. These mineral-rich zones, once promising economic lifelines, have morphed into battlegrounds where banditry, terrorism, and communal violence thrive. The vast gold deposits buried beneath these communities now attract criminal structures that use mining sites as revenue bases, recruitment grounds, and hideouts—creating a vicious cycle that endangers lives and deepens fragility across the region.
Shiroro is the clearest example of how unregulated mining has spiralled into crisis. Mining pits frequently collapse due to reckless digging, trapping miners in deadly shafts. Rescue efforts are often delayed or halted entirely because bandits patrol the area. One such incident occurred in June 2024 in Galkogo, where insecurity stalled help for more than 50 trapped miners. Attacks on mining sites are common: in July 2022, bandits stormed Ajata Aboki community, killing dozens and abducting Chinese workers. Such sites have become lucrative revenue streams, with criminals demanding “protection fees” before miners are permitted to work.
The pattern repeats in Munya and Rafi, where mining fuels banditry by providing steady cash through extortion and direct control of pits. Communities and travellers endure frequent ambushes as armed groups tighten their grip on mining clusters. Mashegu, though relatively less attacked, is no safer. Illegal mining thrives there because operators pay tributes to bandits, creating a symbiotic arrangement that protects mining activities while strengthening criminal enterprises. Across these LGAs, more than 50 illegal mining sites operate in Shiroro alone, drawing in underage workers, impoverished families, and desperate migrants. The influx fuels communal clashes, displaces entire settlements, and creates ungoverned spaces where the state’s authority is virtually absent. This mirrors concerns raised across the North, where mining has turned into a major driver of conflict, empowering violent groups and worsening insecurity.
Criminal networks in Niger State have built sophisticated financing and operational systems around mining activities. They extract funds, materials, and manpower from mining sites through extortion, coercion, and collaboration with artisanal and industrial miners. One of the dominant forces is the faction led by notorious bandit leader Dogo Gide, operational across Niger, Kaduna, Zamfara, and Kebbi. His group controls gold fields around Kurebe village in Shiroro. Chinese-associated mining firms operating under licenses such as Eso Terra Investment Limited and Majelo Global Resources Limited are reportedly compelled to pay weekly bribes of up to N3 million, alongside motorcycles and other supplies. These payments buy “safe passage” but fund the purchase of arms, ammunition, and logistics. Fuel, food, and equipment meant for mining are frequently diverted to Gide’s fighters, while impoverished youths at the sites are recruited to swell his ranks.
The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a Boko Haram offshoot, is also deeply entrenched in mining zones across Shiroro. They impose taxes on artisanal miners, run their own extraction operations, and derive millions annually through gold sales channeled via regional smuggling networks. ISWAP often recruits young miners by offering paid mining work as the first step into their extremist networks, blending economic need with ideological indoctrination.
Broader Sahelian jihadist networks—including Al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin)—also exploit Niger State’s mining economy through cross-border tax regimes. Regionally, JNIM extracts revenue from artisanal gold mines estimated at up to 725 kg of gold annually, valued at about $34 million. In Niger State, they coordinate with bandit groups to maintain smuggling routes, using mining proceeds to buy weapons, expand propaganda, and recruit from communities alienated by state neglect. These groups rarely attack mining sites unless payment agreements are breached. Instead, they treat them as protected economic zones—miniature economies that subsidize the violence devastating the North.
Mining corridors turning into ungoverned spaces
Niger State’s mining corridors—routes linking mining pits to processing hubs and smuggling networks—have steadily devolved into ungoverned spaces due to weak state presence, bandit dominance, and porous borders. The Shiroro–Munya–Rafi Gold Belt is the state’s largest cluster, hosting more than 369 licensed gold titles, about 81 percent of Niger’s mining licences. Gold-rich villages such as Ajata Aboki, Gurmata, Farindoki, and Kurebe are linked to processing centres in Minna and smuggling routes toward Kaduna and Zamfara. Bandits enforce their own taxation regimes and use the surrounding forests as hideouts and staging grounds for attacks.
The Mashegu–Kontagora–Mariga Corridor stretches westward, connecting gold, limestone, and talc deposits to Agadez in Niger Republic through desert tracks. Illegal miners here avoid attacks by paying tributes to bandits, effectively creating semi-autonomous fiefdoms. Child labour is rampant across linked communities like Paikoro and Chanchaga. Beyond Nigeria’s borders, Sahelian smuggling routes channel gold from Shiroro and Mashegu toward Diffa, Tripoli, and Benin Republic through informal networks that bypass security checkpoints. ISWAP and JNIM exploit these arteries to move gold, weapons, and fighters, generating illicit flows worth more than $30 million annually across the region. These corridors thrive as ungoverned spaces because state presence is thin, elite collusion allows illegal operations to flourish, and widespread poverty pushes locals into mining. When violence erupts, communities flee, leaving criminals in full control—taxing workers, recruiting youths, buying weapons, and turning the region’s natural wealth into fuel for terror.
Illegal mining has devastated Niger State’s agrarian economy, where nearly 90 percent of people in affected LGAs rely on farming for survival. Once-thriving farmlands in Shiroro, Munya, Rafi, Mashegu, and parts of Gurara have been turned into cratered landscapes by uncontrolled excavation, poisoning water sources, and driving people away from their ancestral livelihoods.
Mining encroaches directly on farmlands, destroying staple crops such as maize, yams, millet, and rice through open pits, heavy machinery, and the toxic chemicals used in gold processing. Mercury contamination, in particular, has polluted rivers and streams that irrigate farmlands and supply drinking water. In Gurara LGA, expanding mining activity has rendered fields infertile, shrinking yields and heightening food insecurity. In Shiroro’s mining corridors, deforestation and soil erosion have worsened flooding, washing away farmlands already weakened by years of environmental degradation. Bandit-imposed “protection fees” further prevent farmers from accessing grazing paths and farmlands, intensifying herder–farmer conflicts.
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Artisanal mining promises quick money—sometimes N45,000 to N50,000 per day for a lucky family—but it comes at the cost of long-term livelihood collapse. Mining diverts labour from agriculture, eroding traditional skills and emptying farms of workers. Today, an estimated 70 percent of residents in the worst-hit communities now mine for survival, abandoning farming even as food prices soar.
Mining pits in Farindoki and other villages rely heavily on children, some as young as 12, who have dropped out of school to work in hazardous shafts.
The health risks are enormous: dust inhalation, constant exposure to toxic chemicals, and frequent cave-ins. Injuries and deaths deepen economic hardship, and families receive no compensation when breadwinners are harmed or killed.
Mining-driven violence and environmental degradation have displaced thousands across Niger State. In Shiroro and Munya, families fleeing bandit-mining conflicts have poured into IDP camps in Kuta and neighbouring areas, leaving behind homes, farmlands, and generations of heritage. Gurara communities have experienced repeated uprooting as mining expands and land becomes unusable. With limited resettlement support, many migrate to urban centres, where they face heightened vulnerability to trafficking, exploitation, and cultural disintegration.
Across the northern region, more than 420 communities—including those in Niger—have recorded over 12,000 deaths linked to mining-related insecurity since 2001.
Evidence shows banditry thrives amid artisanal mining
In Zamfara State, the convergence of artisanal gold mining and armed banditry has created a potent and deadly ecosystem. Professor Murtala A. Rufa’i, in his book I’m A Bandit: A Decade Research in Zamfara State Bandits’ Den, provides empirical evidence of this nexus, documenting how arms are routinely exchanged for gold in mining areas such as Anka. His decade-long fieldwork combines interviews with active and former bandits, their families, community victims, local officials, and traditional leaders, revealing that banditry is less a spontaneous crime wave than a systemic, economically fueled enterprise.
Local civil society voices corroborate these findings. Between 2011 and 2019, Dr. Anas Sani Anka of Federal University Gusau and Comrade Mannir Haidara, now chairman of Kaura Namoda Local Government, held repeated press conferences highlighting the alarming influx of arms into mining sites, frequent helicopter landings, and the government’s inability to respond effectively.
Field accounts from artisanal miners confirm this dynamic. Late bandit warlord Halilu Sububu reportedly controlled large portions of mining areas in Bagega, Bawan Daji, and Gubirawar Chali, exchanging gold for weapons. His son has since taken over, along with other commanders such as Ada Aleru, Dan Hassan, and Sa’idu Na’eka, who oversee operations across multiple districts including Maru, Maradun, Gummi, Birnin Magaji, and Bukuyum. Several villages, once inhabited and productive, have been deserted, creating near-permanent bandit strongholds.
Former state Secretary to the Government, the late Prof Abdullahi Muhammad Shinkafi, corroborated this structural vacuum, noting in 2019 that over 500 communities in Zamfara lacked security presence, leaving residents vulnerable to bandit attacks. The absence of state authority, combined with lucrative mining opportunities, has allowed bandits to establish parallel governance structures: collecting taxes, enforcing rules, and maintaining internal hierarchies. These systems mimic state functions, granting some local acceptance where official governance is absent.
Rufa’i’s research emphasises that banditry is rooted in layered social, economic, and political failures. Environmental degradation, youth unemployment, and shrinking pastoral lands have fragmented communities, creating openings for criminal networks. Elite complicity and political patronage further sustain the phenomenon, while the illicit mining economy generates steady revenue streams that fund arms, facilitate expansion, and entrench bandit dominance. As both a warning and a guide, the evidence is clear: in Zamfara, the growth of artisanal mining without oversight has not only fuelled economic opportunity but also created a powerful engine for banditry, threatening security, livelihoods, and the stability of entire communities.
State and security responses
Government responses involve a mix of bans, raids, prosecutions, and collaborative security operations, but enforcement remains uneven. Former Governor Abubakar Sani Bello suspended mining in Shiroro, Munya, and Rafi in July 2022 following the Ajata Aboki massacre, initiating profiling of mining sites for security risks. His successor, Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago, lifted the suspension in September 2024 but introduced conditions for legal operations. He created a special task force on illegal mining and vowed to prosecute those involved in child exploitation—leading to June 2025 raids in Chanchaga and Paikoro. In July 2025, 41 illegal miners were arrested and tools confiscated, while NSCDC Mining Marshals detained six more operators in November 2025.
Security agencies have conducted joint operations across bandit strongholds, while intelligence sharing—boosted by investigative reports such as the 2023–2024 WikkiTimes expose—has improved profiling of miners and operators. Still, the sector faces major obstacles: elite protection of mining sponsors, corruption, weak resources for enforcement, and the sheer size of ungoverned forest zones. Without broader reforms, security analysts warn that criminals may simply shift to other forms of violent crime.
Security consultant Mathew Oladele, based in Minna, argues that stopping mining for six months is essential for flushing out criminals from forests.
But media and security expert Mr Onifade Abayomi sees risks in such a pause. “If they don’t see what they get from miners, they may turn to more robbery and killing. Still, it’s not bad giving it a trial.”
