The minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, recently joined the lamentation troupe over the nexus between illegal mining and criminality. In his words, “a lot of banditry and terrorism are sponsored by illegal miners. They are not people who pick gold on the ground but powerful individuals in the country”. In an earlier editorial on this subject, we made this point obvious.
We are re-presenting that editorial to serve as a challenge to the government to find a way out of the quagmire. These so-called powerful people must be named and shamed. Alake can lead the charge.
The nexus between terrorism and illegal mining activities in Nigeria was recently brought to the fore by a British newspaper which, in its report, alleged that some Chinese business interests involved in illegal mining, were behind the seemingly intractable problem of terrorism in the country. The newspaper further claimed, in the said report, that this takes place through bribes and other illicit transactions.
The Chinese Embassy in Nigeria immediately disavowed that Asian country of such allegation and said that it was based on unproven information just as it asserted that the insinuation in the report that China could be involved in such dealings were totally irresponsible and unethical.
It is important to note that this is not the first time Nigerians have noted that illegal mining activities were the oxygen that fuels criminality in parts of the country. This assertion is reinforced by the audacity of these criminal elements to take on state security actors with sophisticated weaponry and propaganda. On a sustained tempo, these terrorists have continued to do the daring and getting away with them.
As a newspaper, we are persuaded to argue that these miners, whoever they are, cannot be indulging in illegal activities in the strict sense of the term. Otherwise, we may be compelled to recommend that the Ministry in charge of issuing mining licences be scrapped and the minister called to explain his role in the whole affair.
Earlier, on this page, we had called to question the involvement of high-net-worth individuals in this whole business that is euphemistically dismissed as illegal mining. For the heck of it, let us even assume that a foreign country is engaged in such illegal activity. It will be unthinkable, in our view, that that country will do it alone without the collaboration of some local partners.
It is pertinent to point out that Nigeria has a surfeit of personalities who have developed exaggerated notions of themselves, their importance in the society and who have come to believe that they can do anything and get away with it. If a foreign country or national is involved in any way, in this business, they may be taken an undue advantage of and or hiding under the influence of these Nigerians who will facilitate their visa procurement, work and resident permits that will explain their presence in the country in the first place.
Mining, it must be understood, is not a covert operation that is hidden. It involves heavy investment in equipment and personnel, local and foreign, who are seen and known. The harvested stones are shipped out through the nation’s entry and exit ports including air, land and sea. There are state agencies in charge of monitoring these operations whose job it is to ensure that the nation’s interest is not, in any way, jeopardized or, for that matter, compromised. Are they aware of these ‘illegal’ mining activities and how are they responding to the obvious sabotage that is implied as far as the nation’s economic interest is concerned?
If, indeed, these mining activities are illegal which presupposes that the country is losing badly needed revenue, what are the security agencies and other arms of government doing to ensure that these economic crimes are curtailed, controlled and managed reasonably well?
In our considered opinion, there is no illegal mining going on. What is happening is that some non-state actors are taking an overwhelming advantage of the laxity, corruption, inefficiency and incompetence in the public sector. And to ensure that the illegality persists according to their dictates, they sponsor those known as bandits and terrorists to divert attention from the real issue which is that some very few individuals, working in cahoots with foreign interests, are milking the nation dry.
In our informed view, when foreign interests are involved in the exploration and exploitation of a nation’s resources, it breeds its own security challenges. There are lessons to learn from Sierra Leone and Democratic Republic of Congo. And the international community has its own way of responding to such illicit activities. We recall the issue of blood diamond and a suggestion by the federal government that the policy should be extended to the oil industry where the nation is losing massive revenue to oil thieves.
But before the international community comes in, the Nigerian government must summon the political will to, first, accept that there is a problem in the natural resource sector, do the needful to expose those connected with the illegal business and bring them to justice. Presently, this official response is absent. It must be understood that foreign interests explore the openings in a local system and environment. It is the duty of the government and its agencies to plug these openings. That ought to come first before any blame is shifted to any outsider. Nigeria has continued to pay lip service to the security risks sponsors of terrorism pose. There is an urgent need to confront this malady frontally. Illegal mining is just a manifestation of the underlying danger.
