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Four months ago,
news broke of the deaths of 163 children in Zamfara State, Nigeria.
Interestingly the cause of death, attributed to lead poisoning, was not
ascertained by Nigerian health officials but by an international
humanitarian NGO, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).

Since that
announcement we have received reports of the death toll rising to about
400 kids. This is a tragedy of monumental proportions.

So far the
responses of government have been twofold: a quick announcement
reiterating the banning of illegal mining, and also that the area was
being decontaminated. What has been termed illegal mining is actually a
demonstration of unseriousness on the critical issue of resource
management as well as environmental management and protection. Mining
of any sort is a hazardous activity. This includes legalised oil and
gas exploitation that grimly sends many Nigerians to untimely graves
through pollutions and through violence. This suggests that the issue
is more fundamental that the legality or otherwise of the activities.

We are also
concerned about claims relating to the decontamination of the
environment of the polluted communities. The sort of reported casual
announcements give a sense of false security to the hapless local
people and also a false impression suggesting the existence of
acceptable government action. With years of unregulated artisanal
mining in Zamfara State and other mineral rich areas, there is an
urgent need for relevant government agencies to conduct serious
environmental investigations with a view to mitigating the impacts.
Outlawing artisanal mining without provision of employment to the army
of the unemployed will neither stop the activity nor detoxify the
environment.

The tragic
decimation of the children of Dareta Village in Anka LGA and Yar Garma
in Bukkuyum LGA must be treated with the seriousness it deserves and
steps taken to halt it. It should also be understood that simply
closing down artisanal mines does not mean that the environment is not
longer toxic. In fact, the impacts being noticed now could have
resulted from historical lead poisonings in the area. This also
suggests that disaster possibly lurks in those poor and neglected
communities.

Some community
people do not even believe that the deaths are results of lead
poisoning or any other fall out of mining activities. Muazu Marafa, a
community spokesperson at Yar Garma, for instance, told environmental
monitors in June that they do not belief that lead used in the mining
process was responsible for deaths in the community because they had
been using it for over many decades. In a nation where post mortems are
rare and where people are content to say that their relatives died
after a brief illness, we see that much work needs to be done to
realign attitudes to the realities of available modern knowledge.

Where are the regulatory agencies?

Besides struggling
with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control
(NAFDAC) over who has oversight over what territories, it is essential
for the Standard Organisation to take a serious look at an existing
threat to public health from further lead poisoning in Nigeria. For
one, many countries have phased out leaded petrol and in Nigeria the
toxic product is the norm. This means that apart from the visible smoke
bellowing from the ancient automobiles on our streets, people are
inhaling invisible toxins from even the clean exhaust pipes.

Another sore area
that needs the focus of the SON is the unacceptably high level of lead
in the paints manufactured, sold and used in Nigeria. A recent study by
some non-governmental organisations revealed that Nigerian paints
contain levels of lead several times above acceptable limits set by the
World Health Organisation and that they rank among the highest levels
of lead in paints in the world. The paints tested in the exercise
include samples from the biggest multinational paint manufactures in
Nigeria. What this means is that the threat of lead poisoning is
everywhere in Nigeria, on the streets, in our schools, homes,
hospitals, everywhere. We have heard of the death of over 400 children
in Zamfara State. It is known that lead can absorbed by ingestion,
inhalation, and via the skin. Its impacts range from minor irritations
and fatigue to others such as gastrointestinal disturbances,
neuromuscular dysfunction, personality changes, cerebral oedema, renal
failure, and gout.

How many more kids are on the throes of death? How many more are
still being poisoned even today? How about the adults who are more
resistant to the poison and so remain alive but have their mental
capacities severely compromised? Decontamination of the polluted
communities requires more than simply closing the mine pits and carting
away top soils from obviously impacted areas. There is urgent need for
deeper examination of even the soil strata to ascertain the reach of
the elements. The fact that water ponds on which the local people
depend are also impacted means an urgent need for safe water supply.
Shallow wells will simply spread the deaths further. The communities of
Zamfara State require proper pipe borne water supply as life saving
measures that go beyond political party logos painted on crumbling
walls of community huts. Indeed, with the level of pollution and the
deaths recorded and still expected, it would not be a radical idea to
relocate the communities to safer locations. No effort should be spared
in tackling the lead menace and save the lives of the kids of Zamfara
State.