So much has been said about the destructive environmental impacts of oil exploration in the Niger Delta region but little or nothing is in the public domain about the monumental environmental effects of coal mining on Enugu State. Several yewars after coal mining as stopped in the state, the water sources, vegetation, soil and the climate remain polluted, thus exposing the people to myriads of deadly diseases. Certain plants and animals are also said to have consequently gone into extinction in the mine communities. INNOCENT DURU in this report examines the impact on climate change.
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Concern as indigent residents drink, bath with polluted water
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Surviving miners relive how they got blinded, contracted diseases working in mines
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Lab tests show water, soil, others polluted – Geologists
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We’ll investigate, make recommendations – FG agency
When Joseph Ubah, a 78-year-old ex-coal miner was employed to work at the defunct the Iva Valley coal mine , in Enugu State, never did it occur to him that he had signed an agreement that would render him handicap for life.
On two occasions, he had the toxic water gushing out of the mines peel off his whole body sparing only the teeth. After narrowly escaping death on those two occasions, Ubah subsequently had debris of coal enter into his eyes while manually breaking coals in the mines and that began his journey into the world of visual impairment.
Ubah is not alone in this. A good number of his miners- colleagues encountered by this reporter also shared horrible stories about how the contaminated water from the mines left them with myriads of health challenges they have either borrowed or sold everything to be nursing. Countless number of the ex-miners were said to have died when they couldn’t afford to pay their bills again.
Aside from the ravaging effects the polluted mine water on human beings, findings across the various mine – sites- Iva Valley, Onyeama, Ogbete and Okpara (Akwukwe) revealed that it has also contaminated the water sources, the soil and the vegetation.
Certain plants and animals like Mahogany tree, wild sugarcane, local cherry (udara wenwen) tortoise among others are also said to have gone into extinction because of the mining activities.
Geologists who have carried out laboratory tests on the water told our correspondent that the results revealed the water is not fit for bathing let alone human consumption. The laboratory tests, according to the geologists also revealed that wastes from the mines dumped indiscriminately around the mines contaminated the soil and the vegetation.
In spite of the inherent dangers, the polluted water remains the only alternative available to many poor members of the communities. Privileged members of the communities buy water from tanker drivers with some spending as much as N15, 000 monthly on this.
“This stream water is from the Okpara Coal Mine and that is what we drink” said Okechukwu, an indigene of Enugu South Local Government Area as he leaves his roundly built wife in the stream to attend to our correspondent.
“We often use sand to form rings around a part of the stream. The sand helps in filtering the water thus making it fit for us to drink. We use the water flowing outside the ring we make with sand for bathing, washing and doing other domestic chores,” he added as his wife listened with rapt attention while sieving the sand he had dug out from the stream.
Mixed with the sand Okechukwu had dug out from the stream were pieces of coal indicating that a deposit of the natural resources is deep down the stream. From the adjoining streams was thick brownish water sipping into the main stream the people rely on to take care of their chores. Some of the sand rings used as filters by the people were already drying up. Left in many of them was thick, brownish, and wet glassy substance said to be minerals by experts.
In spite of all these, Okechukwu naively said the water is not harmful. “We have been drinking and using it since childhood. Even long before we were born, our forefathers were using it. The major illnesses among our people are malaria and typhoid fever and they have nothing to do with the water.”
Before Okechukwu could complete his thought, the wife, squatting like a mermaid in the middle of the river, swiftly interjected : “ It is the sun that causes typhoid and malaria for us because we always stay in the sun. I have been inside the water since morning till now that the sun is shining. The water is good and safe. Once we remove the murky part, a fresh clean one will come out for drinking.”
Few meters away from Okechukwu and his wife was Ngozi, a middle aged woman washing clothes in the stream. Like a model who had been exploited in the past, she speedily charged at this reporter demanding money when she saw him taking her picture. “Don’t just take my picture for an advertisement without giving me money. Make sure you give me money.” Without much ado, her request was granted.
For Ngozi, there is no scientific evidence that can disprove her conviction that the water is potable. Her only worry was about the activities of herders and their cattle on the stream. “The water is very okay,” she said convincingly. “The only challenge we have here is that herders always pooh inside it and also make their cattle do the same in the water. They cattle also eat up what we have planted. Despite this, the water is generally safe.”
The Okpara Mine and the aforementioned stream are located deep inside a forest where murderous herdsmen are said to have been attacking and killing innocent people at will. Our correspondent was eventually able to access the dreaded area after the Enugu South Local Government Chairman instructed armed forest guards to lead him there. Following years of abandonment, the mine has been taken over by dangerous animals and overgrown by bush.
Outside the forest, findings revealed that many residents who have wells don’t drink or use them for bathing. A resident, who gave her name simply as Chioma, said they often buy water from tanker drivers. “Many of us have wells but we don’t drink it or use it for bathing. We also don’t use the water from the stream because it is not safe. We used to go as far as Nyaba River to fetch potable water on foot because it was not contaminated. We later stopped fetching water from there after herders started polluting it.
“Most of us in this area have resorted to buying water from tanker drivers. It doesn’t come cheap but it is safer. It is only those who don’t have the means that still drink the stream water.”
Another resident who gave his name simply as Emeka, said the impact of mining has made it impossible for people to construct high rise buildings in the affected areas.
“It is quite dangerous to have such buildings here because you don’t know where the mines have passed through. Any attempt to put such structure here may simply spell doom. That is part of the challenges that the blessing of having coal has brought to us.”
Popular stream abandoned at Iva, Oyeama mines
At the Onyeama and Iva Valley mines, the environmental impact of coal mining is also disturbing. A popular river, Nmri Ocha, which the people relied on for their chores is one of the casualties. The stream has been overgrown by bush and completely inaccessible following years of abandonment.
“Nobody goes into the stream again. When we were younger, we used to bathe in the Nmiri Ocha stream. After bathing, our whole bodies would be looking white like people who poured ashes on their bodies. The same thing happened each time we washed clothes with the water. Mining activities polluted the stream and it has long been abandoned,” a resident of Iva Valley, Mrs. Uche Duru Onyia, said.
Even though the stream has been abandoned, the water keeps flowing into other rivers, and agricultural farms and consequently polluting them.
Findings further revealed that, though, many privileged residents have the means to dig boreholes to get water for their daily needs, they cannot because the ground water is polluted.
Even in highbrow areas like New Haven, Independence Layout, and several others, the story remains the same.
A prominent member of the state and top notch member of the apex Igbo socio- cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Dr Prince Richard Obiora Ozobu, confirms this. Despite spending fortunes to have a well in his compound, he told The Nation that he doesn’t use the water. “I don’t use the water from my well for anything apart from washing the ground and wetting the flower beds. I buy water worth N15, 000 from tankers. Here, we don’t get water supply often. It is a supply problem. Some tankers take water from these polluted streams to sell to the people. The government has tried several times to stop them from doing so to no avail. The water looks very clean and they sell it to people as if it is from 9th Mile where we have potable water . By my exposure and education I know how dangerous this thing is. This is why you see many people hanging around for liver complications.”
Speaking from personal experience working trying to use the polluted water, Ozobu said:“I came in here with some Americans from Ohio between 1981 and 82 when Jim Nwobodo was the governor to establish sister -state relationships. We came in here sponsored by a real estate corporation to develop a real estate at Artisan Market. We were looking for the source of water supply for the place. The engineers, the developers and I went by foot and followed the water way. When we got there, we found the spring from where water was gushing out and took samples of it down to Ohio and found a lot of phosphorus that has a lot of mixture with coal.
“Nobody could drink or use it but we planned to purify it.
You cannot use any spring from Enugu here easily for drinking or for cooking because there is a chance that it has passed through coal. I told you I tried to do a well here in my house and we ran into coal. When we were 25 feet into the ground we hit coal. It was after about seven to 34 feet we met plain ground again. Even where you don’t meet coal, the water passes through coal to get there anyway. So there is no way you can use it for cooking or for drinking. It is even dangerous if you use it for washing your clothes because there would be some layer of phosphorus and Sulphur.”
Polluted water, coal debris, infect, blind miners
Keen on knowing the effects of the mine water on the human body, this reporter went on a frantic search for surviving miners as many of them were said to have died following complications arising from working in the mines.
The efforts paid off as the reporter came across few of the miners who worked in the department where the mine water was being filtered.
One of them, Alfred Igwe, a 68 year old man, is yet to recover from the complications he suffered exposing himself to the mine water.
“The water coming from the mines is dangerous, very, very dangerous. My legs became swollen after constant contact with the polluted water. We used to wear boots that were always getting to our knees yet the terrible water would always find its way into our legs.
“Several colleagues of mine also have similar problems and acute waist pain because we were always bending inside the mine. When the polluted water was touching our bodies, we never saw any danger in it. It was later that the effects started manifesting.”
Igwe, in an emotion laden tone, said he has been spending a lot of money treating the problem. “One of the legs is not so swollen again but the other is as you can see. I cannot walk without the aid of a walking stick since then.”
Joseph Ubah, 78, is another ex-miner that the scars of working in the mines remain indelible in his life. He had his body peeled on two occasions after the polluted water rose to his chest and later lost his sight after pieces of coal fell into his eyes.
“Each time there was a surge of the polluted water in the mine, they would always call me to handle it. On two of such occasions, the horrible water rose to my chest peeling off my skin. The only thing that was not affected was my teeth,” he said.
“I never knew I would be alive today to tell the story. I had that terrible experience twice. After that horrible incident, coal entered my eyes in the course of breaking it in the mines and that started my journey to being blind.”
Left to his fate, Ubah said: “I have been living a life of hunger, frustration and misery since then. I have spent all I had treating my eyes, yet I cannot see. On one occasion, gas incident killed a fellow miner right beside me. It was a traumatic experience and it is better not imagined. We always thanked God each time we went to work and returned alive.”
An encounter with another ex-miner Emmanuel Onyia, 67, revealed a man who has been grossly emasculated by what he described as the outcome of his exposure to pollution in the mines. “The water coming out of the mines was smelly and polluted. I am alive today only by the grace of God. I have not been feeling healthy because of the pollution I was exposed to in the mine. Many of my colleagues had eye problems, prostrate, liver, lung and other problems. I, aside other challenges, have prostate and acute waist pain resulting from the way we were bending to work in the mine.
Coal mining, he further said “isn’t an easy work and it wasn’t everybody that had the courage to work there. There was no air inside the mine. The smoke coming from the mine was also unbearable. The whites only provided a fan at the entrance that enabled us to breathe inside the mine. We used to bend in the mine from the entrance to the end covering several miles. The mines are always several feet high and hedged with timber but they used to collapse and kill people inside it. Many miners were killed in such accidents.”
86 years old Pa Simon Asogwa, while working in the mines, also developed a sight problem which later resulted in permanent blindness after debris of coal entered his eyes. “I worked in the mine for 24 years. It was a very terrible experience that only those of us who worked inside the mine can recount,” he said.
“When you enter the mine, you will not know whether it is day or night. It was another world entirely. Before we enter the mine, they will shoot the coal. After that we would enter and start breaking it. It was in the course of breaking the coal that the debris entered my eyes. I went to the hospital and got treated. I was thereafter posted outside the mine.
“The eye problem later resurfaced. I went to all the available hospitals to no avail. I eventually lost my sight. Nobody assisted in footing my medical bills. It is the little we had that we were using to go from one hospital to the other. Now we are facing serious hardship. We have no means of survival. Many miners had their legs amputated after the mines collapsed.”
Asogwa’s wife, who sat beside him, recalled how she and other miners’ wives were always apprehensive when their husbands went to work. “At times, when we, the women hear the announcement that the mine had collapsed and killed many workers, we would abandon everything we were doing and run to the mine site with a single wrapper strapped to our chest, each praying that the husband should not be among the victims.
When you get there, you will see bodies of the victims lying on the ground. Wives of the victims will be crying. It was a heart rending experience and a period of palpable anxiety over the safety of our husbands.”
Mrs Uche Duru Onyia whose father also worked in the mines and also as an interpreter said the father also battled with sight challenges till he passed on, lamenting: “Many of them died wretched after several years of slaving in the mines.
The people using the water risk suffering miners’ diseases like lung, and liver problems if care is not taken and therefore should be exposed to urgent medical examination. Most of them before they get to age 50 may suffer from liver problems,” he said with worries written all over his face.
Aside from the dangers of causing illnesses for the people, Dr Ozobu feared the polluted water must have been causing death too. “The water looks clean but they are mixed with dangerous chemicals like phosphorus and sulphur. Because of lack of water, in the rural areas where this water passes through, the people drink it without knowing the inherent dangers and that damages their lives. It causes a lot of death and it is still causing a lot of death as I am talking to you today.
Asked how the consumption has been causing deaths, Ozobu said: “How will it not cause death when you drive past and still see the people fetching the water? You even see people bathing there. As they are bathing there, the polluted water can enter their eyes and their mouth. They are from poor families. As you are going through the 9th Mile, you will see the water running down. Even near the Ogbete Mile, if you go down there you will see water coming down from the hill. Those are not clean water.”
He further said: “This water comes out from different mines as you prospect for coals. As they prospect for coals moving down several kilometers, and putting them in wagons and driving out, water is also coming out. Coal in Enugu is anthracite coal which requires one to go down the earth to get it but it is the real coal. It burns very well but it has a large content of phosphorus and of course sulphur. They are both dangerous chemicals but they are the things that ignite the coal and make it burn.
“The chemicals, phosphorus and sulphur mix with water as you are drilling for coal. As you are drilling for coal, water also comes out. Today, you cannot get good drinking water easily from Enugu. You can hardly get a good well here in Enugu. When you move down 20 feet, you will hit coal and the coal you hit is still developing. For you to get the real coal that you use, you have to dig deep into the ground.”
Mines vandalised
After years of despicable abandonment, what was left of the Iva mines has been vandalized. The buildings have become pile of rubble with the fittings carted away. The tunnel that could have served as a tourist site was nowhere to be found.
“This was a no-go area some time ago. It was inhabited by hoodlums. They have vandalized everything that is left of the mines,” Mrs. Onyia Duru said.
Checks at the Ogbete mines also revealed how massive equipment used for mining have been left to rot. “Some of the equipment was vandalized and sold off by hoodlums. You would have seen anything on the ground if not that the place has been fenced now. 
“This shows how careless we are in this country. Since coal mining was stopped, nobody looked back to see how these equipment can be put into some other uses that will benefit the people. It is a shame,” Izu, a resident said.
Coal mining as huge revenue earner for Nigeria, largest employer of labour in Enugu
Coal, according to ejatlas.org,generated lots of revenue for Nigeria between the years 1916 and 1970 when it was one of Nigeria’s major revenue earners. In the south eastern part of the country exploration of the mineral began proper in present day Enugu State in 1909, with production at the mines in Onyeama, Ogbete, Iva Valley and Okpara climbing from 25, 511 tons in 1916 to an estimated 583,422 tons before a decline set in during the Nigerian Civil War which started in 1967 and ended 1970.
At the end of the war most parts of the South east had been ravaged and many expatriate mining experts, mostly from Britain and Poland had left Nigeria. The exit of experts coupled with the discovery of commercial quantity of crude oil which made the government to abandon coal resulted in the neglect and subsequent abandonment of the massive infrastructure at the mines managed by the Nigerian Coal Corporation (NCC). The NCC tried to manage operations unsuccessfully for another 30 years but the game was up. It finally folded up in 2002. The former miners were not laid off, neither was their employment terminated. The only legacy of mining they have is the Colliery Quarters near Iva Valley that they live in.
In spite of the negative impacts of coal mining on the state, a good number of the people still wish the activities could be revived. “I was born in Iva Valley where they mined coal. The coal was the highest employer of labour then, seconded by railway. Coal mining was a blessing not only to Enugu but to the entire country because it was one of the foreign exchange earners for the country. One naira was like one dollar. Most of us are products of coal. If my parents didn’t work in the sector, do you know if they would have had money to train me?,” Sir Eric Chima Chime, Chairman Rico Group of companies, told The Nation.
Corroborating, ejatlas.org’s report, Chime said: “Mining was shut down after the Nigerian Civil war but operations were resumed thereafter. The government neglected the coal because of oil which was bringing in so much money. They neglected the coal and there was no expansion, there was no future plans for the coal, there was no advanced technology for the coal. It was that same old style of the mine where they put explosives inside the mine. When they fire the mine, the coal loosens and the workers will enter using diggers and shovels to remove it.
“I feel disappointed about the state of the coal just the way I feel about everything happening in this country. Briquettes were sent to the north to stop them from cutting down trees to.I met some American companies who were into mining in the US and told them to come and bring proposal here on how to start mining coal but the bureaucracy was too much and they left.”
Asked if coal mining is still relevant considering the fact that the world is clamouring for cleaner energy, Chime said: “The world is moving away from coal but not all of them. Most of the big countries are still mining their coals using it to generate power. You see the problems we are having with turbines. Up till now we are battling with 5, 000 megawatts. When Oji River was there, there was nothing like power failure within this our zones including Benue and several others. The coals are not useless. Like the briquettes we are talking about. We have a lot of things to do but the political will is not there.
Lab tests confirm water, soil, others polluted- Geologists
Geologists who have carried out tests on the various water sources in the mine communities confirmed they are polluted and unfit for human consumption.
Retired Research Director of Project Development Institute (PRODA) Enugu, Dr David Ezenmoukpe, told our correspondent that his PhD work on Environmental Impact Assessment of Coal Mining in Enugu, made him to collect water from what “ I call mine water oozing out from the tunnels, about eight of them. Then I collected water from nearby streams, Nyaba River, Ekulu River which took its root from Oyeama Mine. I also collected water from other places where mining was not taking place to be able to do good comparisons. I am not talking about the soil or the coal waste matters I collected to do the total impact assessment now.
“I analysed the water and also compared it with the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard, NAFDAC standard and Standard Organisation of Nigeria’s standard. With these three standards one can say whether the water is potable or not. We have a very good lab here. I treated the water and sampled it- both major and trace metals within the water. Then I went elsewhere, Ayingba, another university to use the same process. I will say the analysis I did was almost holistic. The results showed that the water coming from the tunnels from where they are mining is not good for drinking.”
After the test result came out, he said: “My recommendation was that it is just good for domestic use in the sense that you can use it to wash your clothes, flush your toilet, and for some gardens near you but not for drinking. It is not very good for bathing particularly the ones receiving input from other small, small channels. You have to do some filtration and treatments if you must use them.”
Reacting to the use of sand to filter water, Ezenmoukpe said: “Locally they can be using sand to make rings round the water they end up drinking without actually knowing what they are doing. If you actually want to know scientifically whether the water is good for drinking, you have to do the filtering.
“Even now when I get water from 9thmile, I still filter it because I know the sediments are still there, those hard materials are still there. The water is generally bad. It needs treatment before you can bring it down to the level of drinking.
“Here we talk about heavy metals like arsenic, cambium, even iron. When you get this water and put it in a bucket, after sometime , you will find rusting taking place. That means it is changing from ferric to ferrous. And so cadmium, arsenic, manganese are among the eight heavy metals that I treated to make sure that they are there, particularly arsenic is terribly bad.”
Speaking on the effects of mining on the soil, he said: The mining affects the arable land. If you really get to Onyeama, particularly Okpara area, you will see that they have scanty vegetation. Wherever these waste materials were dumped, you will see it bare. Other vegetation fails to grow on them and you will be asking why.
“In terms of soil, the movement is not exactly the way it does in water. The effects are closely related to the area where the mine is and where the waste materials were dumped. By the time you compare it with the background soil samples because I also collected soil samples from where mining was not taking place. When we did, we saw that it affects the vegetation. It kills the organisms like earthworms that would normally aerate the soil for plants to grow.”
Another geologist, Ugonna Sam, also confirmed the water coming from the mine areas is contaminated. “There is this exposure of ferruginised ironstone which can be very dangerous to health. When you talk about coal mining, in as much as the activity is less than 500 years back, it is still recent. Whatever that was done 50 to 100 years ago is still very recent. The activities are still ongoing. Human beings can age fast but those things take time to wear out.”
He added that the activities of mining “affected most of these things- exposed rocks, exposed certain nitrous oxide inside water, exposed certain kinds of methane inside surface water. Those gases that are very dangerous to health, exposed certain rocky layers that are led -like inside the water. The people are very ignorant of them and still go to the stream to process their bitter leaves, local salad called abacha. These are not what you fetch water to do at home. You have to go and do it in the stream by yourself. The food must submerge in that stream for a very long time to process. In the process of doing all these, those chemicals become part of the food. When they go to the market, people taste them directly without cooking them. By so doing, the effect will be so much on them.
“Some of these chemicals don’t even go off, die or become inactive after cooking. At times when you cook, you reactivate some of the chemical characteristics. These have been the problem there at Ogbete Mine that links with Onyeama and Iva Valley Mine. The streams around that area are not good for consumption.
“Led is dangerous to health. The exposure of those led-like structures, for the fact that it contains a certain amount of led will cause problems for people after a long time of taking such things. It can cause some kinds of cancer. It may over a long time also cause liver problems or kidney issues.”
Also speaking on how mining has affected vegetation in the affected communities, Ugonna said: “It must have an effect on them. When you talk about the earth structure, the earth is in layer form, strata by strata. If you go to volcanic areas, you will find they are rich in coffee because the volcano usually brings out silicon and magnesium and silicon and aluminum. It comes from the earth. Men are not actually the ones that should mix up the strata. Nature usually mixes them up.
“When you now start mining, you may mix it up the way it is not supposed to be. When you mix them up it will have effects on certain vegetation that used to grow there and certain animals like flora and fauna. You can use some of the place as a case study or as a control. If you go westwards you will find out that certain things that grow westwards don’t grow around those areas. Udara wenwen (monkey cherry) is a specie on its own but it’s no longer in that area because of mining activities. The same thing applies to wild sugarcane. It is only shrubs you see along the path.”
Effects of mining on climate
On the effects of mining on climate change, Ugonna said: “For you to know about climate change, you have to know the kind of gas that clog up the atmosphere, the tropospheric layer. We have methane, we have nitrous oxide, we have Carbon IV Oxide, we have Sulphuric Oxide, then you have water vapour. We have other halocarbons. Those ones are man-made.
“Mining activities expose some of those gasses in very large quantities and where do they go to? The atmosphere of course. The earth is the only celestial body in the solar system that has an atmosphere. The atmosphere is what keeps you and I alive. It shields us from harmful radiation and any other harmful body that enters the earth. Other planets like Venus, Mercury, etc don’t have atmosphere and anything can bombard them.”
He added: “Whatever you emit has a place in the atmosphere. By the time you upset the equilibrium, you cause problems. We already have Carbon IV Oxide in the atmosphere, we already have lutein in the atmosphere because animals die, people die and plants still die. We already have nitrous oxide and all those things. So the natural environment has already provided you with what you need. By the time you start burning, you start excavating, you start emitting, you will now clog the areas that the sun rays are supposed to escape from.”
Buttressing his point, he said: “Let us take it this way so that it can be understood. When the sun enters the earth, it bounces back. The earth reflects the sun and some enter into the earth core. Some excesses go out and are reflected back. The atmosphere holds some heat back and still allows some of the excesses go out from the atmosphere into the world. When you have excess of this gas, the ones that are supposed to escape, the excesses will hold them back.
“That is what we call global warming. That global warming will now start causing glacial meltdown, heat wave, white fire, spread in diseases, land degradation, soil movement and other problems because man has given the atmosphere what is not supposed to be there. Whatsoever that you will do that will make those existing gases increase will eventually trap heat. Global warming can also cause excess winter. It is called global warming but it comes with different kinds of anomalies here and there.”
Worried by the impacts of coal mining on the state, Ozobu, requested that the federal government should intervene and provide good water for the state because the revenue realized from the mines was used for the development of the country.
“The British should also compensate Nigeria for the damage. I canvassed for this during the Sovereign National Conference.”
We’ll investigate and make recommendations – FG agency
When The Nation contacted the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, (NESREA), the Federal Government of Nigeria that was established by law in 2007 to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment for Nigerians, the agency said the problems of pollution from the mines has not been reported.
NESREA’s Coordinator, Enugu Field Office, Pele Itagiri, says: “ I am just getting to know from you about the environmental pollution. I know there are abandoned mines since the cessation of coal mining activities by the defunct Coal Mining Corporation many years before NESREA was established. Pollution has not been an issue since our office was established and has not been brought to us an environmental pollution that needs to be addressed.”
Itagiri went on to say that it will be good if a complaint is made if there is an issue about water pollution. “ If a complaint is made, we will investigate it, get our findings and make recommendations so that the appropriate actions can be taken.
“The organization that was in charge of coal mining as we know is defunct. Had it been the organization is still operating, part of NASREA’s responsibilities of enforcing environmental laws is to ensure the that the body that pollutes the environment is held responsible to take care of the environment.
“Nevertheless, when there is such issue, NASREA can still investigate and make recommendations. Since we are in partnership with various MDAs and other organs of the government, the appropriate ministry and agency in charge of mine, their attention will be drawn to it to see what the government can do in such a situation.”
Support for this report was provided by the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ)’ and is made possible through funding support from Ford Foundation
