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The Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI) has described the deaths of 13 young miners in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, barely a week after a mine collapse led to over 30 deaths in a border area between Taraba and Adamawa States, as a national tragedy reflecting the seriousness of illegal mining in the country.
The latest incident on Saturday, November 9, happened in the boundary between Bassa, Jos South and Jos North LGAs in Plateau State, with most of the dead said to be teens and young men from Bassa trying to eke out a living through mining.
In a statement shared with newsmen, RDI said that the increasing number of mine collapse incidents, especially in the north, indicates that the magnitude of illegal mining is beyond what the eye can capture, even as it noted that lack of proper oversight by the relevant agencies should be a cause of concern.
RDI Executive Director, Philip Jakpor, said: “We had thought that with the uproar that trailed the Shiroro mine collapse in Niger State in August and that of the border between Taraba and Adamawa just last week, we had heard the last of mine collapse but the incident in Plateau State shows that the entire architecture of oversight on mining operations needs to be interrogated and overhauled to halt the deaths of young Nigerians.”
Jakpor said that governments at all levels seem to have given up or are in complicit silence over the invasion of mining sites across Nigeria by illegal miners, either Chinese or indigenous and the inauguration of the mining marshals by the government at the centre has not stopped the illegalities.
“We believe it is now time for a complete review of the Mining Marshal initiative to make it more in line with the realities on the ground in the mining communities. Of particular urgency is the need for synergy in their operation with local communities and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), which is currently not happening.”
The RDI boss said that there is a need for a national convention on illegal mining to enable local communities to determine how their resources are extracted and used for their benefit, adding that currently the oil curse in the Niger Delta seems to be playing out with solid minerals in northern Nigeria.
“The mining deaths are avoidable and unacceptable. Now is the time for the government to identify and hold the illegal mine operators accountable for not only fleecing the nation and ruining our environment but also killing our people. Anything short of this is a time bomb waiting to explode,” Jakpor insisted.
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