Illegal Mining Kills 2, Collapses Environment in Cross River

By Patrick Obia

Obanliku, Cross River – On April 20, 2024, a tragedy unfolded in Shikpeche, a quiet community nestled in Bishiri North, Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State. What should have been another day of labour turned fatal for Peter Shinong and Emmanuel Ushikeh, two young men who died while working in an illegal mining pit.

Peter and Emmanuel were among a group of many hired to mine tourmaline, a gemstone valued for its industrial and healing properties. They dug a six-foot-deep pit using crude tools, only to be buried alive when the pit suddenly collapsed following an electric shock.

While three workers were rescued, Peter and Emmanuel succumbed to their injuries — one before being extracted and the other en route to the hospital.

“They had no special tools or safety measures, just shovels and cutlasses,” a community member disclosed. “The miners were enticed by outsiders promising quick money, but it was a death trap.”

Their deaths were neither the first nor the last in Nigeria’s dangerous and unregulated mining sector which added to a grim statistic: over 65 people had already perished in mining collapses in Plateau, Taraba, and Adamawa States earlier in the year. Analysts warn that without regulatory reforms, tragedies like Shikpeche’s will only multiply.

Peter Shinong obituary. Photo credit: CrossRiverWatch

Illegal mining is just one piece of a larger puzzle of environmental destruction. In Shikpeche, trees were felled indiscriminately to make way for mining activities, contributing to deforestation in an already fragile ecosystem. Cross River State, home to Nigeria’s richest forest reserves, has seen its forest cover dwindle dramatically—from 7,920 square kilometres in 1991 to about 6,102 square kilometres by 2008.

“The deforestation around Shikpeche affects more than just the land,” said Lawrence Osong, Project Coordinator of the Africa Research Association Managing Development in Nigeria (ARADIN), a community-based nonprofit organisation working to conserve the forest and support community livelihoods. “Temperatures in nearby Obudu Mountain Resort, once a cool refuge, now regularly climb to 27°C. Climate change is entering our communities through the backdoor.”

Illegal mining activities, Osong argued, are exacerbating climate change, releasing harmful methane gases and stripping the land of its ability to sequester carbon. The consequences are dire.

The World Health Organisation projects that climate change could cause 250,000 additional deaths annually between 2030 and 2050 due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress.

Regulations Ignored, Lives Lost

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act of 1992 and the Mining Act of 2007 are clear: mining operations require rigorous environmental and social assessments. Yet, these laws are flouted with impunity.

Mining companies bypass EIA requirements, operate without licenses, and exploit communities like Shikpeche with little regard for safety or sustainability.

“The companies involved in Shikpeche didn’t even attempt to comply,” noted a local source. “It’s exploitation under the guise of development.”

While some community leaders initially supported the mining, enticed by promises of financial gain, the aftermath of Peter and Emmanuel’s deaths led to protests and a temporary halt in operations. Still, no compensation has been provided to the bereaved families eight months after the incident.

Cross River State is no stranger to illegal mining. At least seven local government areas, including Akamkpa, Biase, Boki, Obubra, Ikom, Yakurr, and Obanliku, host unregulated operations. The influx of foreign miners, estimated at over 800 individuals, has turned the forests into battlegrounds for hidden treasures.

In August 2024, Governor Bassey Otu attempted to stem the tide with Executive Order No. 1 of 2024, mandating community consent and environmental compliance for mining projects. The state legislature also passed the Green Economy Commission Bill, aiming to balance economic growth with environmental conservation.

The Chairman of the State Anti-Illegal Mining Taskforce, Prince Paul Effiong said the steps are crucial. “Illegal miners are thieves who exploit our land, deceive our leaders, and bring insecurity to our communities.”

“Most of them are mining in the state without a license and they just get in there and mine without informing the community. Sometimes most of them go to inform the community when the chiefs don’t know things about mining activities; they just deceive the chiefs and get consent letters and then begin to mine in a way that is not acceptable.”

He explained: “Before you go into mining, you must pass through due process to do the right thing, but these people are thieves, and they just want to get in there. By the time we allow them to come into our forest and land to mine, there will be a lot of problems. Before you know it, they begin to kidnap our children, raping our girls and all that; even those chiefs will run and leave the place. That is the reason we really need to put our hands together to save the state.”

Effiong lamented the complicity of some local chiefs and government officials, describing the fight against illegal mining as a battle against deeply entrenched interests.

“We know that there are some people in government who are also supporting this activity, including people from the community. There is no way someone will just start such activity in the community without the Chief and people will not know about it. Sometimes, the politicians. We do not know the miners operating in Shikpeche Community officially,” he affirms.

Civil society organisations (CSOs) like the Partnership for Social and Environmental Development Initiative (P4SEDI) are also raising the alarm. P4SEDI’s Executive Director, Eme Okang, underscored the environmental and social costs of unregulated mining.

“Legal mining is a threat to the environment, how much more illegal mining? Let’s start with deforestation because that is tree mining. Clearing of vegetation for mining activities contributes to habitat loss and reduces carbon sequestration because the trees you are cutting down – if you say there is limestone, tourmaline, gold, and other minerals here, all these are buried under the earth. So you have to bring all that down to access those minerals. When you are doing that, trees sequester carbon they hold them down. They release the oxygen we breathe and we give them carbon dioxide.

“When we release carbon dioxide and there is nothing to take it in to refine and give us back oxygen, what are we doing? We are releasing methane into the air, we are releasing greenhouse gases. Unregulated mining often leaves lands unusable even for agriculture or other purposes leading to food insecurity.”

Eme attributes the venture of illegal mining to poverty and the government’s negligence and inability to pay attention to the solid mineral sector compared to the oil and gas sector.

Okang criticised the federal government’s focus on oil and gas at the expense of solid minerals, calling for a comprehensive overhaul of the mining sector, and “until mining is properly regulated, communities like Shikpeche will continue to bear the brunt of exploitation.”

“The Nigerian government only focuses on the oil and gas sector which contributed to about 7% – 10% of Nigeria’s GDP but accounts for 90% of export earning and 70% of government revenue.

“When you come down to the solid mineral sector, I’m not sure it contributes to 2% to Nigeria’s GDP despite the abundance of these resources across the country. It calls for a concern. Maybe that is the reason the president had to fly to France to make all manner of PACT to come mine in the country directly or indirectly.”

This report was produced with support from Civic Media Lab Grassroot News Project (GNP 3.0).