*Bandits*
There is no link – Abubakar Ganye
Banditry and kidnapping in the north didn’t start in the mines! The menace was started by some disgruntled politician, tyranny of the ruling class both of government and traditional institutions and the cattle rustling and the farmers/harder disputes. No authentic and genuine reports can link contemporary conflicts with mining activities in this our country. Many commentators quickly go on air to link the conflicts with illegal mining without them knowing what is the illegal mining is? They can not legally substantiate their claims of how the so-called illegal mining fueled the conflicts in our communities. In our records, the legal mining activities outweigh the illegal mining activities by far! Contact the Federal Mines Officers in all the state capitals of the federation if you want to substantiate my assertion. Mines Inspectorate is the appropriate department that can confirm this for you. Because all the effective. ines in every state are under their watch. You will know this if you are close to them. Many people are carried away by the erroneous branding of illegal mining to miners and solid minerals practitioners, including law enforcement agents and unprofessional elites in the industry.
There is a link – Seun Ajeigbe
Gold Mining activities (whether legal or illegal) can not be exonorated totally from the act of banditry as at the time of year 2000 till 2017. I can recall vividly when I was doing my National Youth Service Corps(NYSC) with the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), there were unpleasant reports from Zamfara and Kebbi States. I believed by now they must have been stopped and checkmate. Remember the ugly incidence that happened at Owo in Ondo State was linked to the infiltration of the miners into Ose and Owo local governments. All hands must be on deck, starting from the mines inspectorate which I believe are doing their job excellently well even to the local community. Security network are also necessary. Let us take the country as our own.
Bandits don’t have time to operate mines – Bilqis Audu
As a geologist, some of us were posted to places like Maru LGA ( Zamfara State) between 2005 and 2010. There was no problem. We lived in those villages, even as women from the university and did not see any problems.
Illegal miners are also victims of bandits. Bandits don’t have the luxury of time to sit and mine. The problem is mostly political.
Ignorance of political class is to blame – Patrick Odiegwu
Our political class lacks the dexterity required to think out structured solution hence they always prefer cut and join solution, name-calling and dubious attributions; the screwdriver salesman gave the intel to USA that was used in for the attack in Sokoto; meanwhile, we all know that most killing in North central are as a result of farmers/herders crises. Politicians started the macabre mining attribution because the sector has started showing prospect, that they do not really understand. Mining is not simplistic, even as an illegal operation, some knowledge of minerals deposition are required to extract any value.
Like it or not, we must all get involve politically, the space left with these lazy folks will implode all of us.
