INTRODUCTION

To begin with illegal mining has become a neck-pressing issue with great concerns not just Not just in Nigeria but around the globe.

Mining activities in Nigeria is as old as 2400 years according to a reliable government periodical, with mining scoped in the shape of artisanal mining as practiced by communities while searching for natural resources basically for social and economic benefits. As we travel down the years and the advancements set it, we have taken in some wines that made us see into other derogatory purposes for mining other than the socio-economic advantages of the blessings beneath the soil. it was gathered that organized mining in Nigeria began around very early 20th century, and by extrapolation from this subjective statement Nigeria cannot be classified as a safe haven for mining activities, as it has reduced from organized mining to unorganized mining.

No doubt, mineral exploitation is at its prime in most developing nations of the world without exclusion to Nigeria, and with the numerous endowment o these resources which have contributed immensely to national wealth and particularly the socio-economic growth the least can be said. But in the bid to reach forth to the mineral deposits in our nations soil, many infringements on the land rights have been committed, human activities on the art of mineralization has become a high grade abuse. The law and order that controls the access and claim of rights to rich mineral sites are no longer upheld. And this largely due to our heart-rested inclination to the bedevilment of the monster ‘Greed’.

It is no longer news that massive dump of minerals is lodge in the sub-terrain of Nigeria’s crust which should do well to serve as a spring board for Nigeria to rise above the poverty line.

The average Nigerian miner or foreign miners have sworn an oath against commitment to transparency and accountability except a countable few. Who is the parent of the crust? Who has the superseding right over the crust under which this precious mineral sleeps. Our loath would not let us answer the question. Unfortunately, the act of mineral-abuse as I would put it predates to the decades behind, when our quest for claiming ownership increased, and both the government and the cotticing are accomplices to the crimes accusations.

Since mineralization became a ‘hotcake’ peoples’ thirst has not been satisfied as they engage in all manner of excavations in bid to rip the nation dry of its birthright or maybe ‘earthright’. Beyond the face value of mining and mineral exploration lies an environmental menace which serves as a strong arm against environmental sanity. This major setback that comes with mining is the major doing of illegal miners. In the bid to excavate, market-transact and make the quickest income without putting ideal factors into considerations a lot of environmental hazards have been incurred leading to a lot of live damages and destruction of soil profile and cultivatable soil.

Illegal mining is the act of carrying out mining activities or exploration at any landed property owned by the government without paying due diligence to acquiring any of the mining interests or licenses:

  • Reconnaissance Permit,
  • Exploration License,
  • Small Scale Mining Lease,
  • Mining Lease, and
  • Quarry Lease

Violation of any of these licenses or non-possession before unearthing the crust in search for mineral substances is termed illegal mining.

In a brief, the reconnaissance permit covers rights over flyover and any landed territory within Nigeria for mining purposes on a non-exclusive basis, and also allows the holder rights to obtain and remove surface samples in meagre quantities. The reconnaissance license is largely subject to annual renewal as the lifespan is for one year.

The exploration Permit(EL) bestows on the holders an exclusive right to carry out mining exploration within the ambits of his license. As against the reconnaissance, the holder of the license who may not be the land owner is allowed by value of this license possession to conduct bulk sampling and testing excavation, which can be usable for exportation but within limits not exceeding 200sqkm. This license is valid and active for an initial time frame of 3 years but subsequent renewal will be by two years each.

The small scale mining lease(SML) allows for only leasing, whereby the government confers on the lessee the reclusive right to carry out only small scale mining operations within a mining space of more than 5 acres along a 3km span. The lease is valid for 5years and open to subsequent renewals for not more than 5 years at a time.

Mining lease(ML) is usually only eligible for current holders of both exploration license or small scale mining lease. That is, as at the time of procurement of mining lease, the individual must already have in possession either or both of the EL and ML. the holder of the ML has the exclusive right to exploration only in respect to the areas covered by the ML the validity of the ML is for and initial period of 25years and renewable every 24 years.

The Quarry Lease according to the mining acts apply to all quarry minerals such as asbestos, gypsum, marble, limestone, slate, sand, stone, gravel, clay, fullers earth, etc., and worthy of note is that all the aforementioned can also be mined under the mining lease. A quarry lease is issued in respect to areas not beyond 5 square kilometers and valid for period of 5 years.

Mining is a volatile field that always stands in-between ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ which in most cases exploitation has been the sole aim of many miners, and this is what brings about the illegality in mining. People who hold little or zero Knowledge about the nitty-gritties of mining adventure into it for the purpose of making quick money at the behest of certain economic and environmental factors that go along with mining.

 

 

 

Agents that have promulgated illegal mining in Nigeria is owned to the presence of;

  1. weakness of political will, legislative policies and security watchdogs; If the government policies lack the commensurate enforcement backings, illegal mining will continue to have a field day. When legislative policies are not strong enough to curb the pervading activities of the illegal miners it will lead and has led to sharp practices in the field. Asides the strength of the law, agents to ensure the law is being carried out to the letter must be put in place, also legal apprehension of defaulters and booking for prosecution must be taken seriously. This will as a ripple effect of change serve as a deterrent to other defaulters in arrears.
  2. inadequate regulations; regulatory measures serve to control the mining industries, the statistics of miners, the statistics of licenses versus miners, the statistics of leases given out and so on. But because there is hardly a follow up or regulatory body, there are more active land miners than there are licenses already issued. This ration must tally in order to checkmate illegalities in mining.
  3. little or zero technical expertise: Lack of proper knowledge and know-hows about the industry pushes people to engage in illegal mining. When they cannot do it the right way they go ahead t do it by any means.
  4. Rise of prevailing black markets: Although the Minerals and Mining Act requires all minerals obtained under a Small Scale Mining Lease to be sold to a licensed Mineral Buying Centre (Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act, the majority of artisanal Gold miners sell their Gold to unlicensed buyers. Despite generally reliable access to market information via their cellular phones, many miners are obligated to sell their minerals onsite to ―middlemen‖ who have already loaned cash to them for various financial needs. This enables the middlemen (sometimes known as ―retailers) to set the price at which they will purchase the Gold, which is often below market value, and which is in turn sold to the buyers (sometimes known as ―wholesalers). Foreign nationals have been identified as one of the primary purchasers of artisanally-mined minerals (Haruna Yahaya and co., 2010), with purchased minerals smuggled out of the country on the black market.

While miners can generally obtain a higher price through minerals‘ buyers and sellers associations. The location of such associations in capital cities can be quite far from processing sites. There can also be uncertainty about the fluctuating market price and method for measuring mineral yields, rendering the benefits of making the trek to town difficult for miners to gauge. Direct or indirect market access is essential for miners to receive a fair price and avoid the black market (UNEP Analysis of Formalization Approaches, note 56). Strategies to supplant the black market fall under two general frameworks: (1) Using government parastatals to bring the market to the miners; and (2) Incentivizing private action to bring the miners to the market. Ideally, the middlemen would be incorporated into improved marketing approaches, as the miners often trust them.

  1. Lack of knowledge of Rights by Host communities and awareness of their local mineral contents: Unparalleled knowledge of the content beneath the soil the live on, ignorance of these facts makes it easy for foreigners to easily exploit them.
  2. Lack of Law sanctions: legal transgression happens because the law against corruption is weakly implemented. Once the government take the responsibility of arresting mineral criminals serious, it won’t be long before the poisonous fangs of illegal mining is tamed.
  3. Unchecked Immigration of miners without expatriate quota: Most illegal mining activities are perpetrated by immigrants. Some bribe their way through or do not come into the country via the proper channel. Unless this is checked there will continue to be a massive proliferation of illegal miners.
  4. Capital Intensiveness: Mining is a very capital intensive enterprise, from capital to obtain licenses ranging on the cadastral Units(CU), capital to compensate the host communities, capital to hire, purchase or import drilling and all sorts of machineries, capital to process the excavated material and so on. A lot of costing is involved and in view of this, people try to play drudgery in order to mine the cheap way. Most illegal miners employ the services of local artisans who go home with stipends or nothing as wages. These financial demands have raised the number of illegal miners. The most damning effect of low budget or zero budget mining is that low, extremely low quality products are made which does not meet the international standard.
  5. Compromise and renegading of law by government officials: law and order when broken by law makes and law enforcement agents create a legal ground for others to break the law also.

Effects & consequences of Illegal Mining Activities In Nigeria

  1. Loss of Government expected Revenue: Illegal mining surcharges the government. It hoards revenue returns meant for the government coffers into private pockets. These acts of illegality reduce the inflow of generation of income for the government and thus reduces their productivity power. If every parastatal from which the government is supposed to generate revenue operates in this illegal manner and boycott standard procedures, the government will become completely handicapped and unable to carry out its roles and implement its duties to the citizens.
  2. Damage to physical environment: Illegal miner break land and soil protocols. The illegal miners carryout their activities without respect to land use. Such activities which involves blasting of the earth crust leaves such soil profile broken and damaged. Illegal mining can have adverse effects which can lead to gulley erosion, illegal mining can damage the fertility ability of a soil within the blast region. Liters of mineral remnants all around the area without control can lead to deadness of the soil and inability to grow crops. A twin scenario is the case of oil bunkering in the south-south region of Nigeria that has led to oil spillage and flow which has made farmlands and agricultural practices totally impeded, fishes die in water due to oil spillage and crops cannot even be cultivated let along germinated.
  3. Crimes and corruption: Illegal miners constitute a breed of thugs and law breakers. Some may be white collar illegal miners who engage thug artisans to do their dirty jobs. In mining youre either legal or illegal in tapping the earth’s resources. Illegality fosters corruption which is propagated in chains.
  4. Illegalities, Disorientation of the Legal Mining Sector and Standards: Illegal mining is not just illegal but very informal and the most unacceptable to go about mining activities. When the proper route is not followed in carrying out exploration the formal modes are disrupted and left disorganized. This height of informalities in illegal mining makes it such that meagre production costs are put in use, poor equipment, inferior technical standards, evasion of environmental regulations and shunning of labor standards all come with the illegal practices of mining.

Playing by the books is an out-of-play for illegal miners as they seek to minimize overhead cost and thus defeat the basic essences of mining alongside compromising mining exploration integrity. Furthermore, they boycott laws guiding forestation, water pollution and controlled use of toxic chemicals such as mercury in other to blast the earth to make way for excavating the minerals, which have damaging effect on the ecosystem, biodiversity and posing a threat to the long term survival of the industry. The ripple effect of this actions lead to low productivity, poor quality of resources, massive wastage of products and by-products. In the long run the occupy the space for legal companies to operate and invest, which leads to creation of new job offer, better production and large economic growth.

  1. Environmental Degradation and Loss of Productivity: Illegal mining practices, such as the use of mercury and improper land management, contribute to environmental degradation. Deforestation, land degradation, and water pollution caused by illegal mining activities adversely impact agricultural productivity and other economic activities dependent on natural resources (Amankwah, 2013; Ansah & Smardon, 2015; Prosper & Guan, 2015; Amankwah & Anim-Sackey, 2021). The loss of productive land and environmental resources limits the potential for sustained economic growth. Illegal mining operations often involve the clearing of large areas of forests and vegetation to access mineral deposits. This deforestation leads to the loss of critical habitat for wildlife, reduces carbon sequestration, and disrupts ecological balance. The removal of vegetation also contributes to soil erosion and land degradation, making the affected areas less suitable for agriculture and other land-based economic activities.
  2. Economic irregularities: Illegal mining activities gender economic vulnerabilities for dwellers along the site communities, because their sharp practices are done in the dark of sight they are shallow, haphazard and hardly produce sustainable income to service mining costs let alone pay laboring artisans who wear out in work. It can be said that people engage in illegal mining to probably cushion the heating effect of economy downturns, but in the end trying to solve a problem using a problematic and epileptic means cannot go anywhere to solving the problem, on the rather it aggravates and activate the problem to a greater power. As earlier stated illegal miners are exonerated from social protection as they cannot come all out because their illegalities have constrained them, thus exposure to many risks is incurred.

Illegal mining is a not a stable enterprise, it is inflicted with a lot of fluctuations and hide and seek. People who engage in the labor hardly can sustain their jobs for a long span of time, as the law may catch up with them and erode their hopes of survival.

  1. Impact on Trade Balance: According to Crawford & Botchwey, Illegal mining activities can have adverse effects on the trade balance of a country. While illegal mining may contribute to the overall export volume, the lack of proper regulation and taxation means that the economic benefits are not fully captured. This can lead to a trade imbalance, as the value of the exported minerals may not be proportionate to the economic gains of the country. Lack of proper regulation can inflict price differentials and zero competitiveness in the market as illegal miners sell the resources for far less than its global economic worth in other to quickly be done with the transaction and go home. This reduced value for the exported minerals creates an imbalance of trade as imports may also exceed the true economic benefits obtained from exports thus leaving a wide margin deficit.

Ipso facto, it is also impossible to truly account for the gains of mining as well as account from the quantity of minerals excavated vis the volume exported. These irregularities weaken the hand of the government in strengthening economic liveliness.

  1. hand strap the government institutions and policies: it is proper to reason with logic to say that illegal mining undermines the regulatory authority of government policies around the mining sector. It is an outright disregard of authority which can deter the efforts of the government and stall economic progress, investments and raise a cloudy business climate.

The government is often placed in-between unrest of local communities that are mineral-rich because of the feud illegal mining creates among communities and land owners. These actions redirect the government’s focus from what is important to what is less important.

Barrier to trust from Investors: Illegal mining breaks the trust and confidences of viable local and international investors, it reveals discrepancies and reduces trust in every form. These infiltration of illegal mining goes a long way to abolish the rule and order.

Mitigation Factors To De-Risking Mining Sites To Illegal Activities

  1. Reclamation of sites: the government policies should be structured in such a way that once the license of a site has expired the owners should be delicensed thus giving the government only access to the site until renewed or repurchased. This will go a long way in constraining public access to mineral deposits without following the due process.
  2. Arrests of illegal miners: Apprehension of mineral criminals by the law enforcement agents is a premium measure to curbing the increasing number of illegal miners. Ipso facto, due diligence to this action will weaken the spirit of illegal mining as perpetrators know they are liable to arrest.
  3. Stricter laws and order check mating mining activities: people should not be allowed to blast earth’s surface and leave the vacuum empty. The review of critical aspects of Nigeria’s Minerals Prospecting Mining and Quarrying Acts as drafted by Adeoye (2010):

(i).  Ownership and Control of Minerals

(ii). Pre-Conditions for Commencement of Development on Mining Lease

(iii). The submission and approval by the Mines Environmental Compliance Department of all Environmental Impact Assessment Studies and mitigation plans required under applicable environmental laws and regulations; details of the project, conclusion of a Community Development Agreement and evidence of compensation to all users of land within the Mining Lease Areas.

(iv). Environmental Considerations and Rights of Host Communities.

(v). Offences and Penalties for violators.

  1. Closure of mining sites without due licenses, consent letters and other standard periodicals: The debacle was characterized by a seemingly exploitative patronage by wealthy dealers of poor artisanal miners operating illegally with risky techniques and little considerations for environmental hazards. Under those conditions, sediments from washed gems and gold on nearby streams flowing down Kawo village turned into a nightmare when citizens unknowingly utilized lead poisoned water for domestic needs from the stream. These exposed villages to deadly poisoning that resulted in many fatalities (Nmodu, 2015). Shutting down all illegal mining sites with those partially licensed with set at stake a precedence for proper ownership of sites.
  2. Improving and fast tracking the licensing process, especially regulating licensing fee moderately: Government processes in obtaining licenses must become more swift and smooth. The regulations must become investor-friendly. Strict rules and hiccups in obtaining licenses and lease pose a great red flag in scaring away local and foreign investors.
  3. Investing in research and development: There is the need for investing in research and where feasible opportunities and practices should be reviewed and adopted. This is needed in order to fit in with the ever-changing paradigm of commitment to sustainability. The solid mineral mining sector will do well if policies on existing sustainable practices are reviewed.
  4. Provision of funding capital or interest free loans for swift engagement in mining activities: One of the most fundamental constraints to the ability of miners to upgrade equipment and engage in safer mining practices is their lack of financial capacity. With limited cash on hand, miners cannot invest in equipment and supplies without access to credit. Currently, miners rely on what are sometimes referred to as predatory lenders for materials and supplies, which obligates them to sell their mineral to the lenders at below-market prices. This creates a cycle of dependence that is a barrier to the implementation of change in mining practices. Strengthening access to credit facilitates greater profitability because it allows miners to participate in the broader market and provides greater stability because miners can make longer term investments (Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining, 2017)
  5. Investing in research and development: There is the need for investing in research and where feasible opportunities and practices should be reviewed and adopted. This is needed in order to fit in with the ever-changing paradigm of commitment to sustainability. The solid mineral mining sector will do well if policies on existing sustainable practices are reviewed.

Regular education and sensitization should be done in local communities where precious mineral deposits are located. This will serve to make them understand the dangers associated with illegal mining activities.

  1. Law binding support for local stakeholders: the resident of the local communities where these minerals are located must be put into consideration, consent letters as well as incentives for the local people of the surrounding community. Creating a stake for community dwellers gives them the benefits of being the resident of the areas where this mineral is being mined. Also they become passively involved in ensuring they ground is not exploited. Miners must be enforced to bring minimal or substantial development to the community they are mining from.

REFERENCES

  1. Nmodu, A. (2015). Comments: How Illegal Mining Led To The Deaths of 28 Children in Niger
  2. Ahmed F. Ali, Amina S. Abdullahi, Aminu S. Zangina, Environmental Issues and the Prospects of Mining in Nigeria Department of Environmental Management, Bayero University, Kano State, Nigeria
  3. Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining in Nigeria (2014): Recommendations to Address Mercury and Lead Exposure. Environmental Law Institute (ELI)..
  4. Haruna Yahaya & Co. (2007-2010): Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Financial Audit: An Independent Report Assessing and Reconciling Financial Flows Within Nigeria‘s Solid Minerals Industry at 81,

Promise I.O

Human Kinesiologist

Bayero University Kano

Phone: +2347032816477

Email: pio1700690.phe@buk.edu.ng