Radioactivity threatens miners in Plateau, Nasarawa – Why residents of affected areas give birth to deformed babies
But tin mining has also affected the city and its people adversely over the years. Apart from the numbers of deaths during the hey-days of commercial explorations, numerous ponds left behind at the end of mining activities in Jos Plateau State have claimed several lives and still pose danger to life. A disturbing dimension […]
But tin mining has also affected the city and its people adversely over the years. Apart from the numbers of deaths during the hey-days of commercial explorations, numerous ponds left behind at the end of mining activities in Jos Plateau State have claimed several lives and still pose danger to life.
A disturbing dimension to this saga emerged recently with the revelation by the state Commissioner for Mineral Resources, Ibrahim Sale that the over 4012 mining ponds in the state have traces of radioactivity. According to him: “We have now discovered that the sand some Riyom villagers are using from abandoned ponds to build houses have radioactivity. More disturbing, however, is the disclosure of abnormal births by both humans and animals due to this radioactivity. We discovered that women are giving birth to abnormal children even animals began to give birth to abnormal young ones.” Sale said the villagers at that time assumed it was witchcraft that resulted in such abnormal births.
Sale added that: “Recent studies conducted with modern equipment by the state government in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Jos as well as the UN and World Bank have certified that it was radioactivity from those abandoned mining ponds.”
If fears being expressed by experts are anything to go by, residents especially of Riyom must have been drinking contaminated water all this while. The state government through the commissioner confirmed this but said efforts are being intensified to construct boreholes in the affected area. “As a government, we have directed for the construction of boreholes so that they won’t on be using surface water in the area which is likely to be contaminated,” he said.
As experts shout themselves hoarse, many residents living around abandoned mining ponds are oblivious of the danger around them, while some have as it where, surrendered to fate.
Simeon Gideon, 30, and James Essien, 29, residents of Gyel, were washing some tin product by the mining pond in Jos South local government area when Weekly Trust visited Wednesday last week. Gideon said: “I am not aware of any health hazards related to what we are doing, however some times when I sit on a wet tin sack, no matter how I wash my body it will continue to itch me for some days.” However for Essien, 29, “I hear people talking about dangers related to mining activities but I never stop to give it a second thought.” Gideon adds: “Although many times when we go to buy Fura, I notice some tin particles inside the container we use after I finish.”
The worst-hit of these areas is Wase in the southern zone of the state, where there is abundance of cone-shaped mounds of excavated overburdened soils rising to heights of about 15 meters. According to Sale, “we have set up a committee to go round these ponds to bring us a report so that we will know the ones we can repair and those that suppose to be filled up.” He, however, lamented that “the money we need to carry out these assignments was estimated to gulp N152billion and this is beyond the capacity of the state government and even the Federal Government.”
He said there was the need to demand reparation from the two cities of Manchester and Liverpool in the UK, which the state government claimed were developed from the proceeds of tin mining in Jos and other towns in the state. According to him, the colonial masters from 1902 to the period of the independence tapped from the abundant mineral resources in the state and used it to develop some cities in the UK particularly Manchester and Liverpool.
Like in Plateau State, serious mining activities have been going on for decades in many communities in Nasarawa State, but authorities are not bothered whether the miners; many of them women and children, do so with the basic safety measures. There have been several cases of the mining walls collapsing to cave in miners, but the communities are so remote, just as the people are so uninformed that the incidents are hardly known beyond mining sites. This is coupled with the fact that most mining activities in the various sites, are illegal, a development which leave the miners to their fate. The fate, in most case, has been deaths, injuries, diseases and so many other hazards associated with unprotected mining activities.
There are many communities witnessing various mining activities, illegally, although governments at all levels; local, state and national, are fully aware, and have slapped the illegal activities with levies from which revenues are made. The state boasts of a large quantity of solid mineral deposits. It is a belt, running through various communities cutting across the three zones of the state; Nasarawa South, Nasarawa-North, and Nasarawa-West. There are not less than 25 of such solid minerals in large deposits, and sitting on them are 13 local government areas of Akwanga, Awe, Doma, Keana, Karu, Keffi, Kokona, Lafia, Nasarawa, Nasarawa-Eggon, Obi, Toto and Wamba. These are: cassiterite, clay, columbite, limonite, mica, barite, pyrite, galena, limestone, sodium chloride, ephalerite, silica sand, salt, granite, tantalite, sphalierite, talc, gemstone (tourmaline, aquamarine and sapphire), chalcopyrite, topaz, emerald, heliodor, amethyst, quartz, cooking coal, and iron ore.
Mining Supervisor of Emo Ashapura, Engr. Keremu Friday told Weekly Trust in Azara, that the company is awaiting the report of the data survey, for it to determine the next step before site workers would be returned to the pits. The pits, investigations have shown, are mostly 20 metres and beyond, in depth, according to the deposit. Both the licensed company, and the unlicensed and illegal local miners, do go any depth to extract the precious stones and fill up the ever waiting trailers queuing up to transport them to Port-Harcourt, the main market.
At the sites – about 18 of them, being mined by locals, illegally, Weekly Trust investigation showed that not less than a 100 people – most of them women and kids, work at each of them. The men, able-bodied, dig up the deposit, while the women and kids do the packing. Both the diggers and the loaders do their work with bare hands and local implements. Only the company, at the distant sites of “Vein 01”, and “Vein 02”, use mechanized equipment.
The men break hard, and deep into the depth of the ground, digging up baryte, while the women and the kids load up and convey into the open field for sales. A large, long canal of about a kilometer length lies on top of the hill where “Vein 17”, is located. It is not natural; it is man- made. The bare hands of the locals and their kids have done this on “Vein 17” and the other veins since they started the illegal mining in the early 90s.
But the men from whose bare hands this wealth is tilled, and the women and kids on whose bare heads it is loaded and conveyed, have nothing other than their bare skin, toughened by blisters obtained from local implements. This has been their lots since 90s. With nothing to cover their noses from poisoned dust, and their palms from being chopped off by the vibrating hardness of the local implements, these miners have continued since then, to dig out baryte in tones.
Both chairman and secretary of Azara Baryte Association (ABA), Muhammad Shago, and Liman Abubakar, respectively could not be tracked down for comments as it was not certain at which of the veins they were during our visits. But a member of the association, Yakubu Tanko who took this reporter round some of the veins, said the miners are not unaware of the dangers of mining without the basic safety precautions. “But what can we do? We are just labourers working for the mine owners who pay us according to their heartbeats,” Tanko said.
Investigations revealed that the mines are owned by the local chiefs and elders of Azara, as well as some top officers of Development Area and top politicians in the area. They are the illegal miners. The workers on these mines are mere labourers who mill out wealth for the illegal owners to enjoy in far away Azara town, Lafia and big cities. They have been settling government through levies taken, also, illegally, for them to continue to operate as owners. Government officials come around periodically, or is visit Azara town, headquarters of the development area, and they see the illegal owners who will drop something and take fake receipts in return. Not all of the revenue generated from this illegal business is accounted for, and it is not meant for the development of the area, but for the pockets of corrupt local chiefs, elders, politicians and civil servants. That is why nobody cares whether or not, the labourers at the mines are given the basic safety precautions. That is why the authorities do not care for the many deaths recorded on the mines because of pit walls collapsing on miners including children.
The Mine Supervisor of Emo Ashapura, Engr. Friday confirmed that the locals are not protected, as they do not use any safety wares. “But we use all safety precautions to protect our workers. The locals don’t mind. They have to survive,” Friday said.
Mine- related accidents have become a common occurrence. Only recently, lead mining exposed miners and communities in Zanfara State to poisoning, killing dozens. In Chile, 33 miners were trapped a half-mile underground for 69 days, before they were rescued in an operation which broke all known records in rescue efforts.
“Many people have died here. Only recently, one of the pits collapsed burying six persons at Vein 17. With bare hands, after about an hour, we were able to dig out four to remove them. They survived the disaster, anyway, unlike many others who have died from such incidents”, a miner told Weekly Trust at one of the sites. Little girls between the ages of six and 15, who sell their labour for an occasional N200 per day’s work at the mines, also told Weekly Trust that they go through hard, dehumanizing labour with the risk of disasters lurking around, with no protection.
“We go deep into the pits to collect barite with bare hands bare heads. We don’t know any safety measure here. We fear for our lives, but we have to survive. Our parents are poor and cannot train us in school, so they send us here to make money for the family,” one of them said.