Ijero is one of the major towns in Ekiti State. It is popular because nearly every household has a university graduate while the town can boast of many PhD holders and professors. It also derives its popularity, at least politically, to the fact that the former Deputy Governor of Ondo State, the late Chief Akin Omoboriowo, during the Second Republic was from this community.
The residents, like many other communities, live in poverty. It has only one commercial bank. From Ijero-Ekiti one can go to Abuja thus the place is popular because of its location and the fact that it is a route to Abuja, the federal capital.
Aside the above, foreigners, especially from the West African sub region and a handful of Lebanese have turned the town to their base because of the mineral resources the town is blessed with.
Painfully, despite all these mineral resources the community still remains abjectly poor. The roofs over most of the houses are rustic and a lot of them are built with mud bricks, only a few are made of concrete bricks. The town also boasts of a Specialist Hospital which only a few of the residents can patronize due to its cost. There is no pipe borne water and not all the houses have electricity. The sleepy community has three major religions viz: Christianity, Islam and African Traditional Religion. This has not in any way affected their living together. Though an agrarian community, the land has been destroyed by illegal mining.
Land of gold
About 80 percent of the land is rich in mineral deposits. According to Joshua Oyewande Olukolade, a native and educationist, “Ijero is blessed with solid mineral resources and it is next to Jos (Plateau State) in mineral resources. What we have here can sustain this town if well tapped.” He continued, “We have a lot of mineral deposits among them are: limestone,bauxite, copper, tourmaline, cushy, feldspar, foundry sand, costar mica, tantalite, ruby, rubilite, sodonite, prodonite, tin, columbite, diamond , bauxite, iron and kaolin, We equally have gold which is yet untapped.”
The Alajero of Ijero, Oba Joseph Adebayo Adewole, the spiritual and head of the community is not happy that the town is neglected and the mineral resources remain untapped. He is furious that foreigners have invaded the town because of their precious stones. The monarch said, “We thank God this kingdom is blessed with mineral resources, and after Jos that is rich in minerals resources Ijero is next in the whole country. Our mineral resources were discovered in 1934 or 1935. Aside this, some of these earliest discovered minerals were used for war implements then. We still have trenches of these as evidence. In 1992 gem stones were discovered, fespa was also discovered between Ijero and Ikoro. Here we can boast of gold and tin and iron ore! We have several times appealed to the federal government to assist but little was done.”
As one goes into the town, women could be seen sieving some of these products and they display Kaolin for sale. A man who does not want his name in print said, “We sell a 50kg of kaolin for N30 to companies in Lagos. I believe they are exploiting us but that is all what we have to survive on.” Investigations revealed that Kaolin is used for chalk making and other things, while foreigners in the dead of the night cart them away at cheaper prices and resell abroad.
According to Olukolade, ”The foreigners come in here to buy our minerals at cheaper prices and use them to make saucer, plates, earrings, bottles and many other things while they import them back to us as finished products and expensive. Whereas we can make most of all these finished products here .We are richer than Oluwa Glass in Igbokoda in Ondo State in glass making but there is no industry here to produce the glass. When are we going to grow?” he lamented.
He added, “All these precious stones are taken to Europe, the headquarters of diamond production is in Belgium that was why Charles Taylor used diamond money to buy guns. They will put these diamond in a furnace, melt it and mix it with chemical products to produce chains, earrings, household materials to decorate homes, unfortunately our big men would buy them to decorate their homes. It is a mafia thing, as they will sell them back to Africa.”
Ecological and economic threat
To say the community is under ecological threat is not an understatement and to say that the water they drink from the ground is poisonous is not also far-fetched. Though, abundantly rich in mineral resources, it is like a fool who is thirsty in the midst of water. Dr. Femi Ayo Ajai, a veteran journalist and a retired Army Captain lamented “It is not only this town that is rich in minerals but other neighbouring towns also , and painfully despite being rich in mineral resources one cannot boast of any company located here while most of the youths are jobless . In a nutshell Ijero community is living in socio-economic degradation. They are psychologically in bondage and in economic mess no thanks to the untapped human and material resources. The hospital and some houses are under threat. I am begging the federal government to assist, unfortunately these mineral resources is giving outsiders false impression that all is well with the town.”
Thriving illegal mining
Illegal miners, both natives and foreigners have taken over the town. At Sabo are Ivorians, Cameroonians, Nigeriens, Togolese, and Lebanese. They have all turned the town to their homes, most of them are illegal immigrants engaged in illegal mining. Not only this, at night one could see big lorries and cars coming in and going out filled with some of these precious stones. Only very few of them have license to mine, according to investigation. From these few an indigene said, “We are not even sure whether their licenses are genuine for they could be brandishing fake licenses.”
A visit to these mining grounds could make one develop goose pimples as very deep trenches have been dug round some buildings. One of these is the Specialist Hospital, which is in a dangerous state.
When the reporter visited one of the mining sites, he saw four people, including a woman with her daughter scooping sand which they claimed to be precious. Their illegal activities has clearly created ecological problem for most of the buildings in the vicinity, including the Specialist Hospital.
The reporter met two of the local miners whose age range could be in their thirties or late thirties, they were seen inspecting some stones, the other who identified himself as Uba Ahmed said he came all the way from Kano to look for some precious stones to sell. Ahmed, armed with his tools and confidence went down into the tunnel he was happy that his photograph was being taken. He boasted that he would come out from the end of the tunnel in an hour. While the reporter and his guide waited, and within one hour Ahmed was out with a tiny shining stone, which he said was diamond and could be sold for about N1.5million. According to him, there are different types of diamonds with different qualities and they are sold according to their qualities.
Another illegal miner met at the spot, Abubakar Bauchi, said he came from Bauchi to trade in the business, he was found inspecting the stones, but refused to talk to the press.
On how they found and extract the minerals, a Nigerien, Abdulai said, “It is easy to detect precious stones in an area when some particles or special stones are found on the surface of the land. When we sight a certain stone we would dig the ground for about 200 feet deep and when we sight another stone then we continue digging until we get some certain stones which only an expert in this business would know, then you know that that you are getting closer to where these precious stones are. In fact, sighting one stone leads to other stones, it is like a compass which is being used to show the way to these precious stones. We would dig and dig till we eventually get these stones.”
Another method used by the miners are chemicals to blast stones, this was revealed by an indigene who begs not to be mentioned. “We would fix a stone with a wire and connect it with a battery and move away from the place, at least some feet away and then press a button that would blast the stone or small rock and within 30 minutes to one hour it would go off and some stones would be exposed while water would gush out from the area and the next is to use pumping machine to drain the water and continue blasting another rock discovered there. After that we are through , as we would see these precious stones like diamond, columbite and some that we are looking for. The diamonds are of different sizes, but it is not easy getting these real diamond which could sell as much as N20 million.”
Another miner who simply identified himself as Ade said, they normally go in a group and divide themselves into seven “We have about 10 people in each group and then buy some portions of land in about seven places, when we buy a space for N400 per day, another group would buy same thing and part ways and be digging and checking whether we would get these precious diamond , if a group sees diamond the group would call the rest to work there, and it’s our luck but if we don’t get them we have lost the N400 paid for a space of land to be dug. At times we would use rope to go down into these trenches searching for gold. This is the reason why there are trenches everywhere in Ijero and thus affecting farmlands too.”
Deaths
The mining sites have recorded a lot of deaths, according to another local illegal miner. “In a year over 10 deaths are reported aside those secretly buried. Many have died as the heap of excavated sand sometimes cave in while many fall into the ground and die. While pulling a miner up with a rope the rope could cut and the miner could fall in the deep hole and sustain spinal cord injury or broken head or even be buried alive while mining. At times we leave the dead ones in the cave or bury them there while family members would be looking for such people but no one would tell.”
Investigation reveals that in most cases the foreigners’ numbers of unannounced deaths is higher than the natives because they are foreigners and no one would ask after them so they would be buried there or their bodies thrown away. “Many have fallen headlong and died while we would use long ropes to bring their dead bodies out of the holes,” a source said, adding, “at least an average of 20 people die in this process. Last year I know about six people who died.”
A native said his cousin died in one of the dug holes last year, he said ” we were at home when his friends came to inform us that my cousin had died while scooping the earth. We cried and cried and cried for he was yet to get married. Another incidence happened when a boy after he had finished digging the tunnel and was being pulled up with a rope fell back into the deep tunnel when the rope cut, he broke his neck and his back and that was all. He was eventually tied on his waist again and brought out dead.”
Lack of development in the town
Olukolade is concerned about the poor development of Ijero. He is worried that “there is no development here. There is no impact that these precious stones are found here because they are carted away with the connivance of big men in our community. Many have become sick in the neighbourhood because of the activities of these illegal miners. The illegal blasting has created a lot of problems as many have hearing problems, and lead poison has also led to deaths of many. Madam Mary Adefebi said she had no peace and her sleep was always disrupted when she was admitted at the Specialist Hospital where blasting was done behind the hospital.” In the night I would be hearing blasts and my eardrum is always affected. A woman collapsed and died one day as a result of the blast because she was hypertensive,” According to the reporter’s guide.
Another complainant whose house was near the fields of mining said, “Many houses are shaking because they had dredged most of these places. One day houses would be sinking. I pray the state government to assist us in this.”
Olukolade’s prayer is that what happened in Zamfara (people drinking poisoned water) should not happen in Ijero-Ekiti.
The royal father, who is not impressed about the environment frowned against the illegal mining saying, “look at what we have here is pure looting as people come from other countries to loot our resources for example they come from Sudan, Moronvia, Togo, Cotonou , Senegal, Europe and many other countries to steal our resources”.
The way out
Group Captain Firopo Aiyegbusi (retired), one of the notable indigenes of the state decried the situation and said the fault belongs to some of the leaders of the community, whom he refused to name. “I am a retired Group Captain, and I found it unworthy for our children and youths to be unemployed .The youths are roaming about while some had joined bad gangs and steal from the resources and from there many have died. Many of our leaders did not cooperate with the vigilante group. How many have they arrested since we learnt they are stealing our gold? I believe it is with the connivance of some of our people. We have many foreigners here who are staying here illegally because of our precious stones.”
According to Layi Oderinde, a former Councilor, “I remember during my time as a Councilor, I tried my best to intimate the Federal Ministry of Mines, they came for some time to guard the area and later nobody was there to see things again. The illegal miners are stealing and looting here.”
Adumati Adeyinka, a onetime chairman of the town said “let us be honest not all of these miners are illegal but most of them are illegal. During my time I tried to make sure they obey rules and regulations on mining. I would advise them to pay the local government fee. But I am still appealing to the state and federal governments to please help us stop this illegal mining and let there be jobs for our youths and let this town be developed.”
As activities of illegal miners continue in Ijero-Ekiti, the question the poor
