For several decades Nigeria has been unable to develop its solid mineral sector albeit mining. In this interview with BENJAMIN UMUTEME, the Executive Secretary Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, says government needs to do more to protect host communities who bear the brunt of activities of mining companies.
How would you access Nigeria’s mining sector?
First of all, I think the 2020 Budget is skewed and when you think of our desire to diversify from hydrocarbon to solid minerals and agriculture it would seem as though we are paying lips service to this sector. We are not investing the kind of money that will bring the kind of result we are seeking as in this country.
N318m has been earmarked to reclaim abandoned mines site?
The N318 million may not reclaim more than an abandoned mines site in a single state. And it will not even be a serious mining state like Plateau or Niger. It will be for smaller mining state and not the major mining states.
Reclamation needs lots of money. And when you think of the amount we are spending reclaiming, the first question I would like to ask is, have we done an audit how much have we earned as our returns from this pits that we’re trying to reclaim as a country? My suspicion is that we have earned less than the amount we actually willing to use for the reclamation. Those resources have gone off of our shores and they’ve not brought revenue to our government which is such a shame.
How was Global Rights about to get the mining host communities to come together?
As you know, Global Rights has been working with mining communities for more than 10 years across the country. And across the country, you find that it’s based on similar issues. In the North, the South, East, the West of this country, every mining community deals with very similar issues and for some reasons they think one community is faring better than they are that they’ve been marginalized in the process of governance.
But we thought it was very important to bring them together to share their experiences, and also for those communities upon solutions, to share what the solutions are. So we brought them together for an initial meeting, to share experiences and try to see if we can find common front for resolving the issues and it was in the course of this discussion, that the communities decided they would like to work together, in providing the United Front to the government, and other stakeholders, including mining company, and so they agreed to form the federation of Nigerian mining hosts communities.
How can the mining communities address the issues of CDAs which is a common challenge to all of them?
A lot of people say that the Nigerian mining act is perfect but I would say it is far from perfect. And the area which is far from perfection is how we protect mining host communities. The Act makes extant laws for the community development agreement (CDA) but it didn’t tell you the modalities implementation of these agreements. It also says it is to be reviewed every five years but the condition for review especially if you don’t decide in the first year or second year you have to wait for five years before deciding the relationship is not working or can you in the middle of a project say this is not working ministry of mines and steel we want you to intervene.
It’s very unfortunate that the law doesn’t provide for the intervention of government or CSOs in the determination of the CDA because you will find that most of these communities lack the expertise to understand what the impact of mining would be and most times the CDAs are more often than not are realistic in mitigating the challenges that they face when mining has commenced in the community.
In trying to build their capacities what did you deduct from your interaction with them?
A lot of this host communities are indigents, they are made up of rural, poor people with very few infrastructure provided by government. Some of these communities do not have roads. But then not all of the mining pools communities have mining companies in them.
Some of them have artisanal mining going on in them. The law does not protect mining host communities where the miners are artisanal miners. That is a big problem in Nigeria, especially in terms of environmental degradation, in terms of infrastructural provisions. For example, when I tell people that there are mining host communities in Nigeria that does not have access road, people how do companies go in? Sometimes it’s not companies going in, it is artisanal miners. But most times it is also that the companies go in with SUVs and big trucks and able to access this.
You are not able to access the communities with a simple car, or a motorbike as most communities they’re not to access by a motorbike or by boat as the case may be. You find also then that you go to mining host communities, for example, like the United States going to mining host communities and then finding there are no schools and the school that you find in that community was built by the efforts of the community and image of ash, made from palm front woven together to form classrooms is what they have.
And then they said they only have three teachers on a headmaster. And so you will find the teacher he probably will not find one teaching primary one to three, before, one teaching primary five and the principal teaching primary six. And you ask yourself then with the millions that are leaving this community in sense of the gold leaving this community? Is this where this community should be?
There’s no portable water in that community. And then, of course, there’s no electrification either in that community. And so you wonder then, if all of these resources are leaving the community, what revenue is accruing to government? And how is government’s planning on creating safety nets to protect the communities?
One of the reasons why the budgetary allocation for the ministry of mines and steel development is low is that government has not seen as yield anything and it will not yield to you invest in is also what government needs to know. And so those social safety nets, those critical investments in infrastructure, ensuring enabling laws that will provide the social safeguards for mining host communities become very important.
How do we get govt to play their role of getting mining companies abide by agreements with communities?
First and foremost, the government needs to understand the law and the commitment it has made. Apart from the minerals and mining Act, the Nigerian government is under obligation to implement the ECOWAS mining directive. Under the ECOWAS mining directive, it talks about the protection of mining hosts communities; it talks about ensuring that minerals are used for the development of the communities from which they’ve taken.
The ECOWAS mining directive also proposed the very important principle of free prior informed conference, which means you, cannot go into a community and just begin to mine without there being free access and freely giving their permission. Their permission must be informed which means that the community understands what the impact of the mining will be on them.
Prior, that they knew this even before the project commences. Consent, that the content is given freely admit for things that ECOWAS mining directive says. But then you find that people are able to obtain licenses from the mining cadastral office without people in the community understanding mining lease their communities when they see the big factors driving into the community.
And a lot of times the companies who will say that said they obtain license from the community chief, but if you understand the concept of free prior and informed consent, they begin to allude to the democratic way of thinking, which means that a larger percentage of the population are in support of the projects happening, and not just that a single person who may have been cajoled, persuaded or influenced into signing lease agreements or social license agreements, which they may not even understand.
I’ve never seen an environmental impact assessment or lease agreements, social license agreements between the community and the company that is local language or has been fully explain what the issues would be and have been attached with it the environmental impact assessment. I think it is very important that the communities understand what the environmental impact assessment before they commit so that they fully understand what the impacts will be on them.
How can the communities get enforceable agreements from the mining companies?
This is where government is also failing in its responsibilities. When you know that most of these mining host communities are indigents and a large proportion of their population are illiterates. They do not have access to sophisticated lawyers who can explain to them what is about to happen. And what allows them it’s going to agreements with a company that has a company lawyer that has a company secretary that has access to come to sciences to afford the company’s aim is to make profit not to make life better for our community and afford the power imbalance is tremendous.
So, I think that government needs to review those rules to ensure that at least the state government is able to help the communities in this process. One of the fears is that supposing the state government is bought over? But ultimately, it should be the consent of the communities and not even the state government seeing that mining is still in the exclusive list.
Is Global Rights collaborating with the host communities to pushing for amendment to the law?
We’ve been in conversation with the ministry of mines and steel for a couple of years now about the need to amend the law.
One of the things you would have heard from the Town Hall meeting is that even the ministry official admitted that the law was due for amendment. Now that the federation has been inaugurated, perhaps, it’s time for us to make that attempt again particularly the portion that ensure the protection of mining host communities, the portion that will enhance the ways the ministry is about to mop up revenue for the sector are also reviewed and amended appropriately.
So, how can Nigeria get what it deserves from the sector?
The laws that would be reformed should also think of incentivising the artisanal miners into forming cooperatives and that will be easier to monitor their activities.
The other part is that the budgetary allocation to the ministry cannot do the kind of work they are expecting of the ministry. The money is too small for the soil they want to cook.
I will use Nigeria state as an example. Niger state is one tenth the size of Nigeria and they have possibly one of the highest number of mines officers. They have just four officers and until recently, they had just one vehicle, which is not fuelled by government. Once in a while the staff will fuel the vehicle by themselves.
Zamfara state is covered by one officer. You will think that with the kind of revenue that it should be generating with the kinds of risks that parents take already with more than 700 children deaths from lead poisoning, that the government should invest in ensuring that at least one or two vehicles was given to them to cover the land masses which is also tremendous. It will ensure that they have in a sizable number of officers covering the entire state.
The other part is that ministries in Nigeria have not learnt to work together and cooperate together. Now, NESREA works in almost every state of Nigeria, and they also cover some environmental issues. Such childish sibling rivalry between the ministries doesn’t encourage them to work together. Everyone is trying to protect their turf.
And in protecting their turf, one we’re spending more to or we’re not getting as much results as we should, because then you’d have access to more people working on the same issue. It doesn’t work well. Then the federal level also tends to look down on what the state can do.
Yes, mining isn’t the federal exclusive but the law also enables MIRELCOs to be formed in every state, and the federal must seek to work with the state in a manner in which the governance, the local government chairman, people in the state, have a sense of interests, knowing that if we’re able to generate revenue, revenue from the mineral resources money will not only go to federal levels, we could get a good proportion of those money. Then we will be able develop our state that would make the state governments more interested in what’s going on.
