>Mining activities in Zamfara State have been banned till further notice following the death of another set of 10 people from leadpoisoning, the Minister of Mines and Steel, Musa Mohammed Sada has said. Photo:BUSINESSWEEK.COM
Mining activities in Zamfara State have been banned till further notice following the death of another set of 10 people from lead poisoning, the Minister of Mines and Steel, Musa Mohammed Sada has said.
Mr Sada attributed the problem of lead poisoning in the state to continued illegal mining in the affected areas, but said the ban will only be for two weeks after all sides have signed an agreement on the exploration. “The only way we can curtail it is to suspend the activities,” he said. “In fact, some few weeks back, it came back again because despite the stop order, some people went back and started all over again. In fact, we have lost about 9 to 10 lives so far.”
Between June and July this year, lead poisoning had claimed hundreds of lives, mostly children. “As a ministry, we have also gone further to start looking for possible flash points around the country and we are undertaking baseline survey of all the those areas we believe are likely to have this sort of problem in future,” he said.
Lack of capacity
The minister also identified lack of credible mining inspectorate infrastructure as one of the problems hampering the proper inspection of mining activities in the country, noting that the federal government has embarked on sensitization exercises on the harmful effects of illegal mining. “It would be recalled that sometime back when the problem first reared its head, the Federal Executive Council established a committee to visit the locations and advise government on what to do,” he said.
“The committee has submitted its report but as a ministry, we have been consistently on the follow-up because the problem is not an operational one. What we try to do is to take the most important precaution. We realized that most important thing is to educate the illegal operators and encourage them to legalize their activities by forming cooperatives. We have had about two workshops in Zamfara State to educate them. We brought in all the stakeholders including the security operatives in the state to make sure that the right atmosphere is established.”
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