A large-scale security operation led by the Federal Government’s Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative (PAGMI) has cleared thousands of illegal miners from gold-rich sites in Yauri Local Government Area of Kebbi State.
The operation, carried out by the Mining Marshals, a division of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), with support from the Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigerian Army, and the Nigeria Police Force, successfully reclaimed several strategic mining locations that had been unlawfully occupied for months.
Commander of the NSCDC Mining Marshals, Assistant Commandant of Corps John Onoja Attah, said the operation was aimed at restoring order, protecting host communities, and preserving the integrity of Nigeria’s mining reforms.
“PAGMI is designed to empower communities through formalization, structure, and sustainability,” Attah said. “It was never intended to become a haven for illegal operators whose activities endanger lives, destroy the environment, and fuel insecurity.”
He stressed that only registered and properly organized cooperatives would be allowed to operate at the sites, warning that any activity outside approved frameworks would be treated as criminal.
Beyond enforcement, Attah noted that PAGMI’s broader mandate includes integrating informal miners into registered cooperatives, enforcing environmental remediation measures such as land restoration and the filling of abandoned pits, and ensuring proper revenue capture to prevent economic leakages.
The intervention came amid mounting concerns that the designated PAGMI sites—meant for regulated artisanal mining—had been taken over by unlicensed syndicates operating beyond legal and environmental limits.
Community leaders said the illegal operators deployed heavy excavators, industrial crushing machines, and explosives, transforming what should have been small-scale mining activities into uncontrolled industrial operations with devastating consequences.
They said the unchecked mining operations triggered severe land degradation, rendered farmlands unusable, and polluted water bodies with sediment and heavy metals, turning once-clear rivers brown and unsafe for domestic use. The influx of armed and unidentified individuals also heightened insecurity, forcing many farmers and residents to abandon their livelihoods.
“If PAGMI is allowed to work as intended,” a local youth leader said, “mining can finally bring development to our people instead of destroying our land.”
Sources say permanent surveillance and routine patrols have now been established across the reclaimed sites to prevent re-occupation by illegal mining networks.
The Yauri operation is described as another critical step in the Federal Government’s drive to sanitize the solid minerals sector and curb the growing link between illegal mining, environmental destruction, and rural insecurity.
