“Tinubu criminalising poor miners” — Atiku questions 37 deaths in NSCDC custody

Presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, has criticized the Tinubu administration for criminalizing poor Nigerians engaged in artisanal mining, while seeking answers regarding the deaths of 37 suspected illegal miners in the custody of the National Security and Criminal Justice Commission, NSCDC, in Niger State.

In a statement reacting to a video showing a young boy from a gold-mining community in the state, Atiku questioned why residents of a gold-rich community remain impoverished and unable to afford basic opportunities like education for their children. Atiku asked, "How can a community sitting upon gold remain so poor that it cannot educate its children?"

He highlighted the discrepancy between the Tinubu administration's approach to criminalizing artisanal miners and the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, PAGMI, initiated by former President Muhammadu Buhari to formalize the sector. Atiku accused the current government of criminalizing the poor while Buhari sought to formalize artisanal mining.

He described the child in the video as a stark illustration of the hardships faced by people in mining communities and called on the Federal Government to explain the fate of the PAGMI initiative in Niger State and to provide answers concerning the deaths of the 37 miners in NSCDC custody. Atiku emphasized that the gold beneath the community should create classrooms and livelihoods, rather than graves.