Jos — The Miners Association of Nigeria, MAN, has cautioned against illegal mining, saying the lead poisoning in Zamfara that reportedly killed 163 persons, was regrettable.

The MAN National President, Sani Shehu, said yesterday in Jos, that the incident, which occurred in Anka and Bukkuyum Local Government Areas of Zamfara was "purely a result of illegal mining."

He said: "Most minerals contain one level of impurity or the other. Some of these impurities are radio-active in nature. Some of them release poisonous gases that are not visible.

"That is why when you are operating a formalised form of mining, issues like safety, radioactivity and other poisonous gases will be discussed and addressed.

"At the sampling level, certain information like the safety of the place, the associated impurities in the mineral and protection method, if dangerous, would have been revealed in the plan and the design before the mining process."

Shehu explained that mining was a rule-governed profession, saying: "If you want to be a miner, there are rules and regulations that must be obeyed."

He said the association and the Federal Government were collaborating to ensure the artisanal miners were formed into cooperatives, adding that the collaboration was yielding results.

According to him, MAN has registered up to 200 cooperative societies in order to formalise and regulate the activities of the informal miners.

He said: "It is a gradual process from illegality to a formalised operation. This, we will continue to do and along the line we preach the need to mine formally, not illegally and the cooperation has been wonderful.

"I will attribute our success to the 10 million dollars artisanal grant because that served as a carrot.

"We asked them to form cooperatives to get the grant. And I think this is the best way of transforming the informal mining into formal processes.

"We are happy that the idea of forming them into cooperatives also coincided with the Federal Government/World Bank assisted programme. The result is slow but I think we are progressing."

The president blamed illegal mining on illiteracy and the bureaucracy involved in processing the mining documents.