Illegal mining of solid minerals has increased lately across the country despite the efforts of security agencies such as the Nigerian Police, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the Nigerian Customs Service and the recently formed Mining Marshals of Nigeria.

The menace has almost drained the solid mineral reserves of the nation, caused avoidable loss of billions of Naira that should have gone into the national treasury apart from the attendant environmental and health risks borne by communities due to widespread land degradation and pollution caused by the use of harmful chemicals and unregulated excavation.

In this interview conducted by Cyril Mbah in Abuja, Mr. Dele Ayanleke, a Champion Newspapers award winner, who is the President of the Miners Association of Nigeria, provides suggestions on how illegal mining can be reduced or controlled in Nigeria. Excerpts.

Sir, some communities such as Iwajowa, in Oyo State and other parts of the country including Abuja have complained bitterly recently about illegal mining in their areas which has caused widespread land degradation. What do you think is the cause of these unregulated activities and how can illegal mining be controlled?

The engagement in illegality is not limited to mining alone. There is no field of human endeavour where there are no forms of illegality taking place in one form or the other. In the mining sector, it is the survival instinct and the lack of capacity to do the business in the appropriate manner that is responsible for the illegal operations.

When we talk about illegal mining, our attention usually goes to artisanal miners, especially unskilled people who carry shovels and diggers and move about looking for areas with traces of mineral deposits to dig.  Illegal mining however goes beyond the activities of this group of people. Registered mining companies have also been known to engage in illegal mining when they are not doing the business according to officially approved mining regulations and frameworks. So, I can say that illegal mining is poverty driven and can also be blamed on the absence of adequate capacity on the part of government to Implement policies and properly monitor the performance or operations of mining companies, according to laid down rules. The practice of illegality has become part of our nature in Nigeria and the attitude is visible throughout the nation but we would hopefully fall into line when we see someone who can checkmate us.

 It appears that some people have grown thick skin and are not afraid of the laws prohibiting illegal mining. Do you think we need more stringent laws and penalties to help check the growing violation of existing laws on mining?

When we talk about laws, the ones we have are not weak or insufficient. The problem we have today stems from the low level of implementation of the laws and regulations in existence. For example, look at our traffic laws. We do not have weak traffic laws but people will deliberately ignore traffic lights when they are stopped especially in Abuja and willingly violate the rules knowing, as must be the case, that what they are doing is illegal. The laws are not weak but what is lacking is the capacity to enforce the laws in place. This capacity should be strengthened because it is largely inadequate.

What is your association doing to educate the artisanal miners and prevent them from engaging in illegal mining and how far have they been cooperating?

Our Association does not have the legal backing to enforce or regulate the operations of miners. These small scale miners are independent and we do not see them most of the time  Although, they act like pathfinders to registered or licenced miners in the sense that they usually discover mineable areas first for our members to exploit due to lack of inner earth surveying or exploration equipment to determine what is in the ground. With their diggers and shovels, however, there’s a limit to which they can dig and often times, they abandon the sites and move on after alerting the licenced miners of the presence of mineral deposits in the areas. However,  we have forums where we educate our members on the laws and regulations guiding mining operations and the need to religiously obey such laws in their day-to-day activities.

Is there any thing you would want the government to do to reduce or prevent illegal mining across the country because the people who engage in this act are creating bad name for licenced miners?

As operators in the industry, we collaborate and have conversations always with government officials and agencies of government apart from participating in seminars where we tell them what they should do to improve on the system.  Our collaboration with them has been yielding beneficial results. The government gives us listening ears and that was what led the Solid Minerals Development Minister, Dr. Dele Alake to launch the Mining Marshals recently. Surprisingly, the Marshals are not even arresting artisinal miners yet. Instead, they are arresting corporate individuals and companies who have been allegedly carrying out mining operations illegally. We have been doing a lot with the government and the government has been cooperating with us but the administration needs to improve on the capacity of its regulating agencies. For example,  in each state of the federation, there should be a federal mines or solid minerals office. The personnel capacity in these offices are so very inadequate for them to be able to cover or monitor and regulated the mining activities in their different states. So, government needs to increase the capacity of the regulating agencies to make them strong enough to effectively monitor and regulate the activities of miners in their areas.

Lastly, do you think that the Mining Marshals have the numerical strength to cover and police the entire country with their monitoring activities?

Definitely, we do not have enough Marshals for the work and we need more even though the NSCDC members were playing that role initially. The Marshals have been able to cover only 12 states so far. However, I still stand by my assertion that there would not have been any need for Mining Marshals anywhere if the regulatory agencies are properly equipped to do their work of monitoring, regulating and enforcement of compliance with existing mining laws because the security agencies such as the NSCDC and the police that are complementing the efforts of the supervising agencies were doing a good job before now. The Ministry can install modern monitoring devices on all the mining sites to deter malpractices.

On the video circulating online about mining activities going on at Iwajowa, in Oyo State, it was just a piece of propaganda by some elite indigenes of the area who are not even living within the environment. The company has been mining there for over twenty years and it has been doing everything possible to carry out its operation according to laid down rules and regulations.

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