Despite the danger posed by lead poisoning to the people of Zamfara State, due to the activities of informal miners, stakeholders say both the federal and state governments are not responding appropriately to the disaster
In 2010, officials of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) on their annual polio vaccination visit to some rural communities in Zamfara State ended up discovering the presence of lead poisoning. It was later established that the pandemic was caused by the unregulated activities of unskilled miners, working to extract gold by pulverising rocks.
The affected communities are Bagega, Abare, Dareta, Duza, Sunke, Tungar Daji, Tungar Guru, and Yargalma, mostly in Anka and Bugundu local government areas.
According to the Zamfara State Ministry of Health, over 450 children had died from the lead poisoning which broke out in the state, while MSF said "More than 2,000 are being treated for acute lead poisoning. Some of the children treated had been infected again. The exact number of adults affected has not been ascertained, however, it has led to higher rates of miscarriages among female adults."
At the peak of the poisoning, 79 children died within three weeks in Dareta alone.
In the beginning
According to local residents interviewed by MSF, artisanal mining in Zamfara State dates back to 20 years since the discovery of gold deposits near Dareta in Anka Local Government Area. The opportunities later attracted people from neighboring states of Niger, Katsina, Sokoto and even neighboring Niger Republic.
Indigenes of these communities claim, however, that there were no known incidents of lead poisoning from these activities, until Chinese prospectors started to buy gold nuggets from artisanal miners.
To increase their turnover rates, the Chinese buyers had given some of the artisanal miners grinding machines, which most miners started to use within their homes to meet up with demands. Unable to afford the machines, others resorted to using their domestic grain grinding machines to grind the ore, to extract the gold dust which attracted a higher commercial value.
Weekly Trust has learnt the growing business has attracted other national from neighbouring countries to the state. Yet the communities, where the gold is deposited in commercial quantity, are dying in silence, while some are getting richer. The levels of lead laden dust within their homes rose exponentially to toxic levels and soon, children in these communities started to fall ill with lead poisoning symptoms which the local health center initially mistook to be cholera.
Finding grave in search of gold
"There's a gold rush that has been expanding at an ever increasing rate since 2007 and it's really picking up now," said Ivan Gayton, who is head of mission for MSF Nigeria
Gayton. Gold prices had nearly doubled since 2008 and climbed to almost 70 per cent since 2010.
However, today, the Global Rights, a non-governmental organisation, said, the problems associated with mining in Zamfara go beyond the lead poisoning pandemic. It said other issues such as the physical safety of miners, environmental and social impacts were yet to be confronted. "In October 2011, four miners were trapped in a collapsed mine at Dareta for days before they died. Neither the Federal nor the state governments responded to the incident. Incidents like these will continue unabated except if both the federal and state governments step up measures to contain mining related disasters.
"It is the duty of government to respect, protect and fulfill human rights. Where government fails to enforce or protect the rights of its citizens when they are being violated by private persons or entities, then government itself has itself breached the rights of citizens through its passive acquiescence of criminal actions."
The Global Rights added that the top soil in seven communities have been remediated, and some of them have already become re-contaminated, as the remediation had occurred in village centers and lead contaminated earth on their outskirts had found their way into the decontaminated areas. Again, some houses have been affected as lead tainted bricks were used to build homes.
'Gold deposit a blessing'
According to both the state and Federal Governments, "informal mining" is more of road to graves for those considered as informal miners because of lack of professionalism, but the "informal miners" had a contrary view, because, for them, it as a magic way out of poverty and an opener to their wealth.
Haruna Rasheed, a miner and a student at polytechnic in Zamfara state, told Global Right that "I can only thank God for the gold he has blessed our community with. At least people like me get a chance to make a living and have a better life."
He said he earns more than what a fresh graduate on level 8 Step 2 gets every month. "Graduates receive N20,000 at the state while I make N30,000 monthly," he said.
He argued that "everything happens according to the will of God! We cannot stop eating, because our work is dangerous. We cannot steal and we must not starve. The soil is arid [and] yields very little crops. I have to go to school. Education is not free ... it is this gold God has blessed our community with..."
'FG not supporting us'
The MSF said both the Federal and state governments through state agencies had failed to respond appropriately and adequately to the Zamfara disaster. However, Zamfara State Commissioner for Environment, Alhaji Muktar Lugga, said at a workshop organized by the Global Rights, in Gusau, Zamfara State that they received limited support from the Federal Government.
"Zamfara State never got any money from the Federal Government since this disaster happened. We have heard that money has been approved in principle for many months, but that it is being held back due to bureaucracy in Abuja," Lugga said.
He, however, said the state was determined to completely eliminate the dangers associated with informal mining in the state. Lugga said in spite of promises by the Federal Government to "intervene with funds and other support since the outbreak of the disaster, nothing has happened for over two years."
Earlier at another forum in Abuja, Minister of Health Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu warned residents of Zamfara State against another lead poisoning in the area, explaining that the battle against lead poisoning in Zamfara State was not yet over.
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The minister, speaking through the Director of Public Health in the Ministry, Dr. Mansur Kabiru, at an International Conference on Lead Poisoning in Abuja, said "for us to sustain the gains we have made, we need to strengthen coordination among stakeholders so that the collective national interventions can be cost effective."
N800m needed for cleanup
Gayton said Zamfara desperately needed a comprehensive approach to environmental remediation, medical treatment, and safer mining, adding that "if that are not in place six months from now, I'm going to start crying negligence."
In May this year, almost two years after calling for a drastic action to save the lives of many, MSF decried lack of action by the Federal Government to tackle the lead poisoning epidemic in Zamfara State. The ministers of mines, environment and health failed to show up at a two-day conference on the lead poisoning in the state organised by MSF.
"This conference that we just spent a lot of money holding, they expressed their support for it, but none of the decision makers actually turned up," Ivan Gayton, the head of MSF Nigeria, told Reuters. "So the opportunity to announce concrete action was to some extent really missed."
"It does concern us that perhaps they (Nigeria's government) don't realise the scale of the problem and are not engaging at the level we think they should be," Gayton said.
An 800 million naira ($5.08 million) funding proposal from the environment ministry intended to finance safe mining programmes had never materialised, he said.
