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A NEXT
investigation has found that construction companies and individual
miners operating within the Federal Capital Territory have been
involved in the illegal mining of laterite.

The excavations
have degraded the environment and pose a great threat to the lives of
residents, especially in rural areas. The excavations are done without
any attempt to reclaim the exposed surfaces on those sites, leaving
wide holes where water can collect. In some places where the water
table is high, artificial ponds are formed. Because of the inadequate
water supply in many rural communities, residents use them as their
sources of water. However, they often fall in, get trapped and
sometimes die in these swampy wells.

Friday Peters, a
security guard, lost his entire family in one of these ponds located at
Dnako Village, near Sunny Vale Estate in Abuja.

In 2009, his
pregnant wife and younger sister had gone down to one of these ponds to
wash clothes in preparation for a trip to their village for Christmas
celebrations. However, both women fell into the marshy pond and drowned.

“I guess that as
one of them was trying to draw water, she started drowning and when she
shouted, the other came to help and both of them got drowned in the
swamp,” he said, his voice laden with emotion. “We were newly married
then.” The artificial pond is the only available water source in the
village.

Priscilla Ochakpa,
executive director of Women Environmental Programme, a non-governmental
organisation, said the girls were buried quickly because their families
had no money to keep them in a mortuary until the case was settled. No
compensation has been paid to the young security guard. She also
confirmed that that the illegal burrowing still continues in the
village.

“A week after the
girls died, I saw another company that came with excavators, doing the
thing again,” she said. “We wrote to AEPB (the Abuja Environmental
Protection Board) to verify if they gave official permit for those
construction firms to excavate and leave big holes where young people
die. They said I should not worry, that they have their way of doing it
and that they will take it up. But up till today, they are still
burrowing laterite there,” Mrs. Ochapa said.

She also disclosed
that the Dnako village incident was just one case out of several. In
Kuje, a 9-year-old boy drowned in a similar pond where Dantata and
Sawoe Company were conducting excavations. In Lugbe, a secondary school
boy was coming out to the road and drowned in one of the ponds created
by Julius Berger’s excavation. The company is involved in the road
construction in the area.

The director said
she has tried to draw the attention of the Abuja Environmental
Protection Board (AEPB) to the matter, but without success. She blamed
the board for not doing enough to enforce relevant rules and bring
offenders to book.

Mrs. Ochapa noted
that in developed countries, licences are issued to companies and
environmental impact assessment concluded before mining activities can
take place. Companies must show plans on how they will refill the land
before they start.

“We can only talk
about these issues but only the government can take action,” she said.
“I wonder why government should be toying with some of these issues
when lives of innocent Nigerians are being lost.”

Official complicity

When this reporter
visited the excavation site in Dnako, a company that identified itself
as a one-man construction business was loading laterite onto a waiting
tipper loader.

The excavator
operator, a man who would only identify himself as “Chike”, said they
have obtained the necessary permit for the business. He explained that
the company shares its earnings with the community.

“When the tippers come, we give them sand for N3000. Out of this, the community takes N1000 for each trip sold,” he said.

Chike said that the
police are paid N1000 whenever they come around, about three times in a
week, and AEPB officials are paid N10,000 when they come. The tipper
driver said they sell each trip for N10,000 to their customers.

“Whenever we give
this money, they will tell us to continue our work and that we should
call them when anybody disturbs us,” said Chike. “But if we don’t pay,
they will report us to the chief and the villagers will chase us out.
So that is how it is.”

A community
representative, identified as Babangida, confirmed Chike’s claim.
Babangida collects money from the companies on behalf of the community.

Speaking through an
interpreter, Auta Tezhibeyi Shekwolo, village head of Dnako Lokogoma,
he said they would be glad to drive out the construction firms if the
government provides them water and other means of livelihood. The
village is suffering from scarcity of water and the borehole provided
by the local council authority is not functional.

Board doing its best

Uche Agbanusi, head
of the Environmental Monitoring Department of the AEPB, denied being
aware of any complicity by board officials. He said the board had tried
to tackle illegal mining activities in the FCT, especially laterite
burrowing, but that the miners are too large in number.

“Managing
degradation issue is purely our responsibility and when we discover
illegal mining activities, we deal with it,” he said. “If on
surveillance, we see any abandoned mining site, we insist that the
company responsible for the digging do decommission and reclaim the
whole place. We are not sleeping on this matter,” Mr. Agbanusi said.

He also said that
the AEPB does not give mining licences. If miners bring a licence from
the ministry of mines and steel, the board only asks them for an
environmental impact assessment before they begin working.

Efforts to contact officials of the ministry of mines and steel were
unsuccessful, as the director in charge of mining licences was said to
be out of the office.