Inside illegal mining trade that costs Taraba N100m daily

Taraba State is losing millions of naira to illegal mining of precious stones on a daily basis, findings by Daily Trust on Sunday have revealed. The illegal mining is taking place in three local government areas of the state. With blue sapphire the target of the miners.  It was gathered that at the Mayo Sina […]

Taraba State is losing millions of naira to illegal mining of precious stones on a daily basis, findings by Daily Trust on Sunday have revealed. The illegal mining is taking place in three local government areas of the state. With blue sapphire the target of the miners. 

It was gathered that at the Mayo Sina site in Nguroje area of Sardauna Local Government Area, blue sapphire worth over N100million is sold to foreigners on a daily basis.

This business has been on for the past five years with the full knowledge of the authorities. Similar activities also take place in six other sites across two local government areas of the state.

Apart from the gemstones, other deposits of solid minerals, such as tourmaline, topaz, uranium, galena, limestone are yet to be exploited.

Using diggers, shovels and head-pans, the miners work day and night at the sites in Sardauna, Karim Lamiido and Yorro local government areas, searching for blue sapphire.

On how much the miners make, one of them said, “Nobody can tell you how much the middlemen and main dealers of gemstones are making from the business of blue sapphire and other precious stones in the state.” 

Our findings showed that the miners engage in their activities without obtaining mining permits from the government. It was also observed that the mining sites are located in areas with difficult terrain.

A miner, Mallam Yakubu Ibrahim, said that if all the solid mineral deposits in Sardauna Local Government Area alone were exploited, the state would generate close to N500million monthly from royalty, while jobs would also be available for thousands of youths.

Most of the illegal mining activities take place at Mambilla plateau in Sardauna Local Government Area, where, until recently, a shanty town housing more than 10,000 illegal miners was destroyed by security agents sent by the Taraba State Government.

When our correspondent visited Mayo Sina mining site, it was discovered that the place, which used to house over 10,000 miners, was empty. Only a mosque and a church were seen, while all the shanties erected by miners were either burnt down or dismantled.

A guide, Musa Yakuku, an okada rider who conveyed our correspondent to the valley from Nguroje, said that before the miners were dislodged, the area was always full of activities.

Pits and deep holes were the common features of the environment, which covered several meters in the valley, down to River Mayo Sina.

Yakubu said that his friend, who was also involved in mining activities, built a house and bought three motorcycles from the money he made at the site. “My friend made a lucky strike and the stone he dug out fetched him N5million,” he said.

But if Yakubu’s friend was lucky, several others were not, as close to 100 miners lost their lives when the pits in which they were digging for blue sapphire collapsed and buried them.

“A week hardly passed by without a pit collapsing on miners at Mayo Sina and other mining sites across the state,” a miner said.

Some mobile policemen stationed at the site declined to speak with our correspondent or allow him take pictures, insisting that they were not allowed to talk to journalists.

It was further learnt that the miners, including  minors and women, had been  on the site for the past five years, using hand tools to dig for blue sapphire before they were dislodged in December last year.

One of the miners told Daily Trust on Sunday that it was a big battle before the police were able to dislodge them. It was said that a policeman died in the process. 

Our findings further revealed that greater percentage of the miners at Mayo Sina were natives; others came from other parts of the country.

There were middlemen who bought the stones from labourers. They serve as link between the labourers and big dealers. 

The big dealers, who are mostly from Senegal, Mali, Guinea and Cameroon, operate a cartel that has monopolised the market. 

 “It is the middlemen that fix the price and a miner (labourer) has no right to reject whatever amount he is given,” a miner who identified himself as Bulus said. He said there was an instance where a miner was paid N40, 000 for a stone, but the dealer sold the same stone at N2million. He explained that the main buyers normally stayed inside Gembu town and they hardly come to the Mayo Sina, the main mining site.

“The middlemen have the monopoly of the market. They will never allow us to take the stones outside the mining site. They keep an eye on the miners, and at end of the activity everyday, each miner is searched to see if he has hidden any stone,” Bulus further said.

Our findings further revealed that traditional rulers and security agents in the area also benefit from the mining activities as they are given what is called protection fee.

The mining settlement, it was further gathered, had a chairman, whose tenure depended on how frequently he took returns to those who appointed him.

A dealer, Mallam Musa Haruna, told our correspondent that blue sapphire worth over N60 million and N100 million were sold on a daily basis at Mayo Sine. And all the money goes to private pockets without government getting any revenue.

He said there was a time when a blue sapphire weighing several grams was sold at N200million, adding that even the dealers do not know the real value of the gems stones they sold.

Another dealer who spoke on condition of anonymity said a carat of fine blue sapphire was sold in the international market at $1000.

A major gemstones dealer, Mallam Kabir Abdullahi, said that blue sapphire was sold in places like Thailand and India, where it is used for making jewellery and manufacturing electronic chips. Unlike diamond, that the production and marketing are subjected to international scrutiny, blue sapphire finds its way into the Asian market without difficulty, it was gathered.

Further investigation revealed that apart from thousands of youths within and outside the Mambilla plateau, about 1,000 women also engage in mining activities.

The women, who are mainly of the Mambilla tribe, also formed an association called Women Miners and Multi Purpose Association. The president of the association, Mrs Bagu Kabri told Daily Trust on Sunday in an interview that a Mambilla women engaged in mining because it’s a quick way of making money.

She said the land in which mining activities were taking place belongs to them and that they would not fold their arms to see people from other places make fortunes in their land.

“Mining of blue sapphire offered us the opportunity to make money to feed ourselves and send our children to school,” Mrs Kabri said. She expressed dismay over the action of the Taraba State Government who dislodged them from the mining site at Mayo Sina. She said stakeholders in the area should have been involved in taking the decision to send the miners away. 

She said that with the closure of the site, thousands of people, including women, were denied their means of livelihood.

“The Taraba State Government should consider women in whatever programme it is using to sanitise mining activities in the state,” she said.

Findings by Daily Trust on Sunday also revealed that miners who were dislodged from Mayo Sina have moved their operation base to Yalwa and Sirap in Mayo Ndaga, in the same Mambilla Plateau area. It was gathered that although the miners are not in large numbers as they were in Mayo Sina, they are also making a lot of money at the new sites. 

A resident of Yalwa told our correspondent that the miners discovered another blue sapphire site in the area, located few kilometers from the road leading to Gembu. He said that on a daily basis, more miners troop to the site, located at the valley. He added that business and social activities were picking up in the area.

Down the plateau, similar activities are taking place in Yorro and Karim Lamido local government areas. It was further learnt that hundreds of illegal miners have trooped into the sites in search of blue and red sapphire. Also, Chinese nationals are among the main buyers of the gemstones in the area.

It is said that illegal mining is taking place in many parts of the state because previous administrations did not accord the sector the desired attention.

A retired civil servant, Alhaji Ibrahim Abubakar, said that each of the 16 local government areas of the state had deposits of solid minerals, but the government failed to put policy guidelines in place for its development.

He said if the state government had paid the necessary attention to the sector, it would have depended less on allocations from the Federation Account.

“During his time, the late Governor Danbaba Suntai awarded contract for the survey of all solid mineral deposits in the state to a Russian firm at the cost of N2billion. But only 2 per cent of the contract fee was paid to the firm; hence it refused to release its findings,” he said 

In his effort to fully harness the solid mineral potentials of the state, Governor Darius Ishaku has created a Ministry of Solid Minerals.

Our findings also revealed that the state government established 20 mining companies, and all the 16 local government areas are stakeholders.

Also, a non-governmental organisation known as the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) organised a workshop for stakeholders and miners in the state, where miners and communities were brought to a roundtable in Jalingo recently.

The campaign and research officer of the organisation, Mr Omaojo Ozefoh, told our correspondent that Taraba State was blessed with solid mineral deposits, but they were not properly harnessed for the benefit of the people. He said the dialogue was organised in order to avoid conflict between legal mining companies and land owners. He said companies which engaged in mining had the responsibility of providing social services to communities where they operate.

“If properly harnessed, the solid mineral deposits in Taraba could sustain the state. Therefore, it is desirable for the government to focus attention on the sector,” Ozefoh said.