Justina Asishana in Minna, Niger State, in this report went on the trail of illegal miners who have invaded the Niger State College of Education premises and thereby making life unbearable for both students and the authorities.
ABDULLAHI looked wearily at his farmland; which had been dug into without his knowledge or consent by illegal miners. Earlier, the miners had approached him to sell the land to them because according them, they had noticed gold in it. He refused. But they ignored his refusal to sell. They dug into his land in search of gold!
Confirming the story, he said, “It is true that they approached me to give up my land, that they have noticed gold in it. I told them no, that it is a family heritage and I will not give it up. Seriously, I thought they had left me alone, only for me to get to the farm and see that they have started digging it up.
“Do you imagine that they even said that they were still ready to pay me? But I need my land back and that is what I have been telling them”, he said shaking his head sadly.
The miners have also dug tunnels from a point in the Shango community, through which they access the many sites within the Niger State College of Education, Minna, also in search of gold.
According to the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Niger State is the leading destination for illegal mining of solid minerals in the country. In a recent survey, NEITI said that out of the six states at the top of the illegal mining list, Niger had more illegal miners, with innumerable illegal mining sites. It added that minerals such as gold, lead, zinc, and tantalite were consistently mined illegally from some of the identified sites.
The fate of most of the landowners in Tunga Goro and Shango communities in Chachanga local government area of Niger State is not palatable as their lands and houses are constantly being invaded by miners like bees upon honey. They have continuously fought a lost battle with these miners who are gradually gaining the upper hand as each day breaks.
The mining activities are believed to have started a long time ago, however, it has been heightened with the clampdown on illegal miners in Zamfara State following the lead poisoning incident that claimed several lives. These miners have now moved en masse to Niger State to continue with their activities unbridled.
These illegal miners are believed to be nationals of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon while others are Nigerians who had come from different parts of the country in search of gold.
These people do not take no for an answer, to them, they only want to make money by digging up gold as they claim “Tunga Goro” is a town sitting on gold.
Even the Niger State College of Education is not left out from this invasion as the management of the College and the students have continually had to wade off these illegal miners to the extent that security agencies are being called in to help them ward off these aliens.
Unending battle between College authorities and illegal miners
The Niger State College of Education, Minna is not spared of this threat by illegal miners. In fact, the Provost of the College, Professor Yakubu Auna, at every opportunity he has had in public has raised alarm over the continuous invasion of illegal miners and the dangers it is posing to the college.
According to him, the activities of the illegal miners are threatening the school’s operations as part of the land belonging to it has been totally taken over by these illegal and desperate miners.
He told The Nation on Sunday, “If you go to the back of my College, you will meet people there and you will be shocked and they are well armed, they are violent, they are dangerous and in fact, I cannot just explain it.
“I have cried out loudly to whoever is concerned about protecting the lives and properties of Nigerians including those of us in the College and its environs but up till now, I have not gotten any response.”
On another occasion, the Provost said that all efforts to dislodge the miners have proved abortive as they only find new spots when they are driven from the old spot they had dug.
“Hundreds of illegal miners have taken over our land, they are degrading the land. We have tried to evacuate them but they have refused to leave. All efforts made to dislodge them have proved abortive as they only find a new spot within the institution when you drive them out from their previous spot,” he added.
Vicious miners, ready for battle at all time
Confronting the miners has proved deadly. They have grown increasingly hostile and vicious, a situation which has made a lot of people to avoid them. Confronting them can turn into a deadly fight that no one is ready to get involved in.
According to the Provost, all means to get the miners through diplomatic means have failed.
“There were instances when we used the private security guards and other security personnel. In fact, they have had time to engage themselves in a physical brawl and they inflicted injuries on one another.
“But it got to a time that I was afraid of engaging them so that no life is lost and I would not be held responsible for it. So, I have since stopped engaging the illegal miners physically,” he explained, more or less in a frustrating tone.
One of the fixers engaged by the Reporter also told of how deadly the miners are saying that any stranger they notice in their midst is usually scrutinized and if they are not satisfied, they may end up hurting the person.
The Reporter was warned of the danger of going to observe their activities without been accompanied by one of the ‘miners’. However, all efforts to get and convince a miner to take the Reporter along to where their activities were held proved abortive as none of them showed any willingness to undertake the task.
“Because of the continuous raid by security, these people have become wary of strange and new faces. They are in possession of dangerous weapons and do not hesitate to attack anyone who they are suspicious of”, the Fixer warned.
An institution on the verge of collapse
Students of the College of Education, Minna who spoke expressed concern on how the activities of the illegal miners are affecting them. They expressed fears that most of the buildings in the institution may soon collapse as these miners have burrowed deep into the soil on which the buildings are.
The Student Union Government President, Comrade Mohammed Zakari, said that the miners have rebuffed all efforts of the Union to dialogue with them disclosing that each time after talks, their operations become more intense than the previous times.
According to him, “Right now, we do not know where exactly they have dug to within the school environment. But there is a possibility that most of these buildings have been dug into.
“The male hostel is the one being threatened most because they carry out their activities very close there. Even the ICT building would have collapsed if not because the school management stopped them from digging further under the building.
“If they continue like this without being stopped, the male hostel and other buildings in this institution would collapse. The lives of the students have been endangered, you cannot move without being afraid of the ground collapsing under you.”
The SUG President said that students who come to school at night to study are at the mercy of the miners as there have been incidents of attacks and harassment of especially female students.
Another student in the Department of Linguistics, Umar Saidu, said that the miners claimed the College is sitting on gold and that they are determined to get the gold they can out of the land!
“They (the illegal miners) say the environment is sitting totally on top of gold. They say that what they are doing is not illegal and they carry out their activity comfortably without any fear.
Although there has not been any physical face-off between the students and the miners, this is mainly because of caution from the school management.
“Imagine we, who are the owners of the land, walking tip-toe around these miners when it is seen clearly that they are in the wrong. They have no fear of God at all. If you even have the chance to meet them to talk to them about it, they will give you a hard time.”
Porous security in the school
The increasing invasion by the illegal miners can further be attributed to the porous state of security in the institution. The management has continually lamented over the lack of security.
The Provost in a radio programme decried the nonchalant attitude of the security in the institution saying, “Funny enough, you will see illegal miners coming into the college and at the end of their activities, they will board their motorcycle and pass through the gate of the college where the security men are seated and they (the security) will raise the bar for them to pass through the gate.
“It baffles me what kind of security is this. I think there should be an assertive way of doing this. There is a problem when someone is involved in illegal activity and passes easily through our own gates. I have called on the security apparatus to work hard to sensitize their men to be up and doing.”
The SUG President, Zakari who corroborated the lax security arrangement said that was one of the major problems of the institution. According to him, “The security is not enough. We have more or less 50 security men to man this whole college and this is grossly inadequate. The security threats and lack of security men deter students from staying in the hostels especially the female students.”
‘We do this because there is no job…We are not doing anything illegal’
Surprisingly while the students, school management and community dwellers complain about these illegal miners, they are not ready to leave their profession as they claim it is the only way they meet their daily needs!
Although the Reporter was unable to get to their mining sites because of the warnings dished out by a concerned group of people, she was however taken to a dealer who buys the gold from them after they had dug it up.
Situated in a shop where no one would guess dealings of gold is going on, the dealer who gave his name simply as Isiaku said that he is both a miner and a buyer.
In the shop, there were different types of little plates, a small stove, a basin filled with water and scales for measuring the weight of the gold brought in.
While the Reporter was there, Isiaku had dealings with three illegal miners who came to trade in the gold they had mined that day.
The first seller, aged about 50 years, came into the dealer’s shop to trade in his gold. It was put in a small container and looked like shiny sandy particles. The dealer said that it has already been filtered. Isiaku measured the substance and gave it to the old man to look at the weight; after the confirmation the seller was given N3, 500 for his haul.
Another man who says he is 30 and gave his name as Mohammed also brought in his own portion which the dealer said had not been filtered, so he had to wash it in the soapy water being careful that none of the gold is poured away; he then dried it on the small stove in the shop. After drying it, he filtered it and put the gold particle on the scale after which he gave Mohammed a princely N5,000.
Speaking to the Reporter, Mohammed said that he had to dig up and carry 50 pans of sand to get the gold deposit he brought for sale.
He added that the same was fetched from the riverside adding that now is not the period for digging up the ground for mining because the ground was soft and no one could guarantee safety if he goes underground.
He added that he had to go into mining because he could not get a job, “I have a wife and three children. How will I feed them when I don’t have a job? They say we are illegal miners but is this not better than stealing? We are getting the resources that God has given to us. No man has it other than God. Why can’t we take it and make money out of it?”
On the other hand, Isiaku explained that those of them who buy the raw gold from miners have an association and they help the miners with soft loans or if they get into trouble with the law.
According to him, these miners are not illegal, they are carrying out legitimate business to enable them to fend for themselves, “The government is crying that there are security challenges everywhere, is it not better you allow these ones to mine what they want to mine instead of letting them take up arms?
“We (the buyers) have an association that helps the miners with soft loans. In some cases where they have discovered gold in some lands, we give them money to buy the land from the owners only on the condition that if there is any gold, it is sold only to us and no one else.
“We also help them whenever they are arrested by the Police. We act as their sureties and guarantors. These people are doing their work, the security people need to stop disturbing them.”
He then said that they view any stranger coming to them with suspicion and are always on alert because of the abuses they have faced from the security agencies.
Dangerous exploit
“It is dangerous for anyone to just come and observe us like that. If not because of him (the fixer), I will not have allowed you. Even these transactions would not have occurred here. Saying you want to go to the site yourself is putting yourself in danger because these people will go violent on you.
“They are suspicious of everyone that comes here that is a stranger because of the recent hostility with the security people.”
Adamu Adamu, another miner, said he went into mining because of unemployment saying that the government has abandoned the youths.
“I went into mining because there is no job. The government is not paying attention to us. There is no job anywhere, what do you now expect us to do?” he asked no one in particular.
He said that mining pays a lot as it enables him to take care of his family and have more to save.
“I have been into this job for three years now, I do not see anything illegal in it. It pays a lot. I have been able to build my own house with the proceeds from this job. Can I get any job that will pay me about N4,000 daily? I don’t think so.”
Unreported deaths
While these diggings have been going on, there have been unreported deaths due to the grounds caving in on the miners.
Sources told The Nation that a lot of the miners have died underground as a result of soft ground which when dug caved in on them, thereby leading to loss of lives.
“Some months ago, in one of the sites where mining was taken place in Shango, four people were buried alive in a space of three days. What they do is that they leave the place where their people die and continue elsewhere,” the source said.
Another source said that during this rainy season, over ten people have been buried alive, “This is probably why they do not mine underground during the rainy season. Those who died were said to be novices who were eager to mine and get quick money.”
These deaths are however not reported to the security or other relevant agencies as those who died are mainly said to be aliens and are therefore unaccounted for.
Environmental impact
Environmentalists stated that the impacts of mining can occur at local, regional, and global scales through direct and indirect mining practices.
The environmental impacts of illegal mining can result in erosion, sinkholes, loss of biodiversity, or the contamination of soil, groundwater, and surface water by the chemicals emitted from mining processes.
These processes also have impacts on the atmosphere from the emissions of carbon which have an effect on the quality of human health and biodiversity.
Theresa Abba, an Environmentalist said that when the lands are invaded upon, it will take years for the mining area to return to its original place.
“Some mining methods have significant environmental and public health effects. Lands that are mined upon will take years to return to its original state. These lands cannot be productive till after some years,” she said.
How would rein in these illegal miners as the authorities of the college of Education have thrown up their arms in surrender (?) to the illegal miners? Is this not disaster in waiting?