Renevlyn Development Initiative

Inside Awe Mining Fields of Hell

Field Report: 006

Date of Visit:
3 September 2024

Location:
Abuni Community, Awe Local Government Area, Nasarawa State

Report by:
Our Field Monitor

Introduction

Abuni is a village under Kanje chiefdom in Awe Local Government Area (LGA) of Nasarawa State.

Abuni shares boundaries with Keana LGA to the west and Obi LGA to the east, and has a population of about 2,000 people who are predominantly of the Hausa, Jukun and Tiv ethnic nationalities.

The official language spoken by the locals in Abuni is Hausa and most of them are into farming, rearing of animals, fishing and trading. The women are mostly involved in animal husbandry and trading of farm produce.

What makes Abuni unique is the abundance of solid minerals in its landscape, making it one of the communities that contribute to the revenue earnings of Nasarawa State from solid minerals. The minerals found in the community include lead, copper, zinc and lithium which has recently been found there.

But like the surrounding communities in Awe LGA, Abuni community lacks everything that makes life meaningful. The community does not have a single motorable road or a hospital or school for children of the natives. The power supply in the community is abysmal and the locals are usually in darkness for upwards of three or four weeks at a stretch many times. 

Despite the failure of the government in providing basic amenities for the community and the local government at large, the farmlands that the locals depend on for sustenance are now being ravaged by a Chinese firm – Multiverse Mining Company and some unlicensed miners in their reckless search and extraction of solid minerals. It was learnt that whenever the firm discharges waste waters from its channeler the pollution affects farmlands. Subsequently the lands only produce poorly.

Another unfriendly practice that the locals now contend with is the earth-shaking rock blasting which are carried out indiscriminately and intermittently by the mining firm using dynamites which results to cracks in most of the houses in the community.

Like in surrounding towns, the miners engage armed security personnel and thugs to help them protect their operations from the vulnerable community people. The miners also engage under-age children in burrowing into the earth in search of minerals, endangering their lives in the process. They also procure illicit substances which are given to the miners to make them bold enough to go deep into the earth without fear. They also lure young girls, some as young as 13 years by enticing them with cash, phones and other gifts in exchange for sex.

Pollution of River in Awe

Aside farmlands, the mining activities in Abuni and environs is now constituting a threat to the lives of the locals and fishing activities at the River Rafin Jaki where the waste water discharged from the wastewater channeler in the mining fields terminate. RDI learnt that the Rafin Jaki is the only source of drinking water and water for other uses by the locals and that the chemicals channeled into the river is responsible for a lot of ailments that the locals experience and some deaths in Awe town, the headquarters of the local government.

Locals say that the effect of the chemicals in the water is so hazardous that whenever the chemical is discharged into the river they can’t even bath with the water. They equally recounted a recent incident when the chemical in the river was so much that it resulted to deaths of nine children.

It was gatrhered that the Concerned Awe Youths took samples from the river which was sent for analysis in a laboratory in Kaduna. The outcome showed that the water was heavily polluted with chemicals and therefore unfit for use.

The locals wrote a letter of complaint to the company but only got a reply that the company only has dealings with the state government and not the locals. Their attempts to get the state government to also act has so far failed.

Shady Community Engagement

The locals told the RDI team that while they cannot speak for the government, they are not aware of any agreements signed between the community leaders and the Chinese firm or other miners. They are however aware that some local chiefs may be benefitting from the proceeds of mining as they are periodically visited with gifts by the miners.

They also alleged that the mining firms use divide and rule as a tactic of ensuring that get easy access to the community lands, using the local chiefs as their entry points to lands for solid mineral extraction in the area.

Sexual Exploitation of Underage Girls

Along with the influx of miners into the community is also the growing sex trade targeting young girls who are supposed to be in school, some as young as 13 years.

RDI learnt that due to the poverty in the community and lack of access to schools by the girls, the miners promise them gifts and jewelries often in exchange for sleeping with them. Some of the girls have also been lured to abscond from their families to live with the miners in their camps.

RDI was informed of the case of a Chinese merchant called Tang who impregnated a young girl in the community. The girl was said to have given birth to a baby boy for him after which he forced her to relocate to the mining site where he operates even without the consent of her parents.

Insecurity

The locals in the area relayed their fears that the activities of the miners might lead to the kind of happenings in Zamfara State where most towns are now under siege by bandits and kidnapers due to poor monitoring of mining activities.

Locals informed RDI that recently there was the case of a trader from eastern Nigeria who was kidnapped unknown people in the community. Even after payment of ransom his abductors still killed by him. For them, such developments are strange and such had never been recorded in the community until strange faces started appearing in the community due to the mining activities.

Testimonies

Abdullahi Umar Abuni

Most of us who listen to the news broadcast from the radio hear of what is happening in Zamfara State where bandits reign supreme. It is this same mining activities as we are now seeing that got them into the crisis they are experiencing today. So we do not want the Zamfara experience to happen in our community where bandits determine people’s fate. But with what we are seeing, except something urgent happens, there is danger ahead.

Grace Lorfa

It is unfortunate that miners have turned our young girls into sex machines and make them defiant to their parents. With the gifts they use to tempt them, you dare not talk to the girls or caution them or else they will leave home completely and relocate to the mining camps.

Fatima Musa

My daughter does not listen to me anymore since the death of her father which forced her to go into prostitution when the mining activities started. Some of the miners have taken advantage of our poverty in this village and regularly take our children to their mining camps for sex. I don’t see my daughter anymore. She comes and goes as she feels likes. The situation is not restricted only to my daughter; most girls in our community are doing the same.

Mallam Abubakar Usman

The government is not sensitive to our plight. If not, how can a government that says it means well for its people allow them to be so exploited by foreigners in their ancestral land? We leave them to God and only he will save us from this situation.

PICTURES FROM THE FIELD

Observation

The people of the area Abuni are suffering from acute poverty and exposure and to worsen the situation most of this things are happening because they have a low level of education in the area. Their farmlands have already been taken over by the mining activities.

The people have already been divided by the miners for easy access to their God giving resources.

The use of under age children as sex toys and young boy that are supposed to be in school are now engaged into sourcing for themselves is another timed bomb waiting to explode in Nasarawa State.

Recommendations to Nasarawa State Government

  1. Take full responsibility for its failure in addressing the ecocide in Abuni and other mining communities in the state
  2. A halt to the destructive mining activities in Abuni, Uke and environs
  3. Revocation of the mining licenses of the Chinese firms and their other local accomplices
  4.  Scrutiny of the agreements the mining firms reached with the Abuni and other local communities in Awe LGA and documentation of breaches as a learning opportunity
  5. Arrest and prosecution of officials of the mining firms and officials of government in the Ministry of Solid Minerals who failed to carry out their monitoring functions.
  6. Comprehensive environmental audit including water bodies in Abuni and environs and the entire mining communities in Nasarawa State.
  7. Mapping of impacted areas that go beyond designated mining sites and compensation for affected locals
  8. Identification and rehabilitation of young girls lured into sex trade by mining firms
  9. Restoration of the degraded environment

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