Minna 37 and the resource curse

 They have gold dust in their soil and that, ideally, should have meant enhanced living conditions for residents. But, no. They are today in mourning, having been bereaved in one swoop of more than a score of their young ones who died in a Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) cell on suspicion of illicit gold picking. It’s all about the Nigerian curse of natural resource.

Thirty-seven artisanal miners aged between 14 and 18 years became fatalities on 17th September after suspected illegal miners were arrested by Niger command NSCDC operatives in an operation they carried out in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas of the state over the two days preceding. Many underaged persons, reportedly including a six-year-old, were nabbed and allegedly cramped into an overcrowded holding facility to which more arrested suspects were added by the day until there apparently was no room to breathe. Female illegal miners were as well arrested. Survivors recounted terrifying moments when detainees trapped in allegedly poorly ventilated enclosure were desperately grasping for air and banging on the cell door as fellow detainees began to suffocate. “All of a sudden, we realised we could not breathe and were all struggling to get fresh air,” one survivor was quoted saying.

Reports cited other survivors giving similar accounts. Among them, an 11-year-old said all arrested male miners were confined in a cell even though there were about five cells at the Niger command of the NSCDC. He further alleged that the congested cell was at some point sprayed with a toxic substance by corps operatives before they slammed the door shut on the detainees. “We were transported to a cell where 17 people were already held. Forty-three of us were arrested from a different mining site, and we were added to the 17 people already inside, resulting in 65 people being crammed into a single cell. When we complained about the overcrowding, we were instructed to sleep standing up,” the minor was reported saying. 

“There were five cells in total. One cell held the women, three cells were empty, and all the men and boys were packed into the remaining one cell. After the rain stopped around 10p.m., the extreme heat in the room caused people to start fighting for room to stand. Some people started to faint. We begged for water but were ignored,” he added, as he spoke of other alleged measures of brutality by the corps officers. According to him, when the detainees cried for help, the officers  threatened to shoot anyone who spoke, fired a warning shot into the air, secured the door with an additional padlock and left. “Those who were dying were in such extreme agony that they began biting the people next to them,” he further recounted.

The deaths triggered civil unrest in Minna as youths trooped out in protest. Gunshots and teargas filled parts of the city as security operatives attempted to disperse the crowds, while motorists sought alternative routes. This prompted Governor Mohammed Bago to impose a 24-hour curfew on the state capital, saying vandals had taken over the streets. He also suspended mining activities across the state pending soil tests to determine whether hazardous substances played a role in the deaths. According to him, preliminary forensic findings showed foam mixed with bloodstains in the mouths of some of the deceased and peeling skin, raising the possibility of lead poisoning.

Niger State command of the NSCDC attempted deflecting blame for the deaths by attributing these to a suspected disease outbreak, but without naming the disease. In a statement that oozed with insulatory officialdom, State Corps Commandant Suberu Aniviye said the command, “in its renewed efforts to rid the state of illegal mining activities, conducted a ‘burst operation’ on 15th and 16th September, 2026, leading to the arrest of suspected illegal miners and the recovery of exhibits.” He added: “The operation yielded significant results, with scores of suspected illegal miners arrested and various exhibits recovered. However, in the early hours of 17th September, 2026, scores of the detained suspects were found dead following a suspected outbreak of disease.”

“The Minna tragedy points up the social inequity inherent in a people hosting a natural resource and being forbidden from picking the crumbs that fall off big miners’ table”

It was an exercise in insensitive image-making he will live to regret because he was swiftly suspended by government and is now in detention along with 24 operatives of his command at the head office of the NSCDC in Abuja. That was following President Bola Tinubu’s tough stance on the incident. Mr. President described the deaths as a grave matter requiring urgent investigation and accountability and ordered comprehensive probe covering the arrests, the condition of the suspects when they entered custody, the detention environment, the number of people held at the facility, the medical attention provided and events leading up to the deaths.

According to him, being suspected of illegal mining did not deprive the detainees of their right to life, dignity and humane treatment. “Government will not tolerate mass deaths arising from official negligence, dereliction of duty or failure by public officials to protect the lives placed under their care,” he added in a statement.

Already, Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has inaugurated a 10-member independent panel to probe the detainees’ deaths, with a strong warning against any attempt to suppress evidence, interfere with witnesses, or in any other way hamper the investigation. That government instituted an independent investigation, rather than leave the matter to an internal NSCDC probe that Nigerians would have had every reason to distrust, is to be commended as an indication of official determination to unearth the facts.

Apparently taking a cue, the NSCDC high command has isolated the indicted Niger command personnel. Corps spokesman Babawale Afolabi, in a statement, said the state commandant and others were in protective  custody at the national headquarters where they were undergoing rigorous interrogation and administrative disciplinary action, so to make them available for the independent probe instituted by government that may lead to prosecution. He quoted Commandant-General Ahmed Audi saying: “As a Corps built on integrity, professionalism, discipline and absolute respect for the rule of law, we do not condone unprofessional conduct, high-handedness or any action that undermines the fundamental rights of citizens or the sacred trust reposed in us.”

The victims and other artisanal miners arrested in Niger State went about the enterprise that landed them in trouble apparently in the presumption that they could help themselves to crumbs from the natural resource located under their feet. They were wrong, of course, because all natural resources within the extant framework of law belong to government. But for some, it is a matter of survival. One of those who came out alive from the Minna detention, an 11-year-old who is a primary five pupil, said he was mining for gold because his parents are poor and he needed money for his education. He added that the day he was arrested was his first time on the site, suggesting that some locals were newly taking to the trade to eke out a living.

Exactly what killed the Niger miners remains unresolved and is part of issues to be unraveled by ongoing independent probe. But the suggestion by State Governor Bago that there could be some toxic substances in the soil that might have played a role in the deaths through possible lead poisoning already highlighted the hazard posed by natural resources to most host communities. Even where such hazard is not directly impacting on health or the environment, it is sociological, like the tyranny of terror in the gold fields of Zamfara State.

In most cases, however, the hazard directly impacts on health and/or the environment of the host community. Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni struggle.  The activist was executed by the late Sani Abacha’s regime on 10th November, 1995, for fighting against environmental destruction of his native land by Royal Dutch Shell drilling for crude oil. Eight other were executed along with him. Saro-Wiwa’s last words, as recorded, were: “Lord take my soul, but the struggle continues.” And true to those words, the Ogoni degradation received global attention and is today being progressively redressed. Among other things, Shell in 2009 paid $15.5million in out-of-court settlement intended to resolve a lawsuit brought against it in 1996 on behalf of Saro-Wiwa’s family and others.

The Minna tragedy points up the social inequity inherent in a people hosting a natural resource and being forbidden from picking the crumbs that fall off big miners’ table. Locals have neither the capacity nor equipment to drill new fields that could be rightly appropriated as national wealth. It is, thus, high time government considered a framework that allows them to gather leftovers of licensed operators in the manner of the law of gleaning in Biblical dispensation. We wouldn’t have learnt anything if we didn’t seize this opportunity to humanise the system.