Illegal Mining, Capable of Greater Pollution than Oil, Gas in Niger Delta ~ Global Rights

By Kelechi Nwaucha

For over 50 years of oil exploration in Nigeria, more than 1.5 million tons of crude oil were spilled in the Niger Delta, leading to biodiversity loss, health crisis among the region's over 30 million inhabitants, socio-economic tensions and an environment severely damaged. Of note, however, is the growing threat in the mining sector, and it's likely impact on mining host communities. Following an over 30% spike in mining activities, in Nigeria's quest to diversify revenue earnings from oil, host communities in the mining sector and their environment have began to show early signs of repeating the Niger Delta scenario. A situation that has seen mining communities in Nassarawa, Niger, Kogi and others record incidents of land degradation, water and soil pollution, lead poisoning (and blindness), among others. These informed a training for journalists, drawn from various media and states across Nigeria, held in Abuja on May 9, essentially to create awareness and ultimately forestall a repeat of the Niger Delta experience in mining communities across the country. Edosa Oviawe, Programs manager at Global Rights, organisers of the training, with support from Ford Foundation, said Nigeria faces the prospect of an environmental crisis that is ten times more than that in the oil and gas sector if urgent steps are not taken to address governance gaps in the mining sector. He said this is "because the oil and gas is majorly situated in the Niger Delta, but the solid mineral is not so. Solid minerals are scattered across every part of the country. As a matter of fact, there are solid mineral deposits in every state in this country." Giving an insight into the health situation faced in mining communities in the country, Tsema Ede, Natural Resource Governance expert, drew attention to the reported death of 400 children in Zamfara as a result of lead poisoning, adding that over 60 children also died as a result of lead poisoning in Shikira community (Niger State). This, she said, can be attributed to the fact that "the kind of gold that is mined in Nigeria is associated with lead. To process the gold, remember this is illegal mining, they need to process the lead and extract the lead from the gold. "And most often, rural communities, because they are not knowledgeable on these things, they don't understand how this is done, we find that they use their cooking pots, use their cooking pans, and process the things even in their homes, in their backyards." Emily Offodile, founder of Ziva Community Initiative, in a breakdown of the Nigeria Minerals and Mining Act 2007, among other issues, she called for a domestication of the Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee (MIREMCO), contained in the Act, by state governments across the country. Read more: https://phmundial.com/illegal-mining-capable-of-greater-pollution-than-oil-gas-in-niger-delta-global-rights/