Tin has been mined on the Plateau for decades, contributing to household finances. However, the government often misses out on due revenues.
Formerly a tin miner, 31-year-old Jugu Samuel is now a salesperson in an electronics shop on the outskirts of Barkin Ladi, a town near Jos, the capital of Plateau State in central Nigeria.
He said that the glory days of tin mining are swiftly fading. "The mineral may still be available underground, but people cannot find it easily like before."
Mr Samuel was one of the thousands of locals in Barkin Ladi communities such as Kuwait, Bagin Bingiga, Zat, and Maiyanga, where unlicensed artisanal miners often mine tin, a critical material needed as a solder in circuit boards, computer semiconductor chips, and solar panels.
The clean energy transition, featuring a shift from coal, oil, and gas toward renewable energy and batteries, has renewed global demand for tin, lithium, and other critical minerals.
Tin has been mined on the Plateau for decades, contributing to household finances. However, the government often misses out on due revenues due to neglect, weak regulatory enforcement, and corruption among officials. As Nigeria now cracks down on illegal extractive activities to benefit from the growing global demand for minerals like tin for energy transition, there are concerns the ground has already been depleted of tin.
According to data released by Statista, Nigeria is the world's ninth-largest tin producer, accounting for about three per cent of the global supply.
However, miners, traders, and processors now express worries about shortfalls across the value chain. When PREMIUM TIMES visited, multiple locals who had earned a living from the industry said they quit extraction due to "scarcity". This is in addition to the state's insecurity and climate change effects.
"We had it in abundance before but not anymore," said Chung Isaiah, an 18-year-old who dropped out of school to start mining tin, which cost N12,000 per kilogramme as of July.
Esther Chattong, who buys the mineral from local miners and supplies it to processing companies, complained that the supply has significantly reduced.
In previous years, Ms Chattong could get up to 4,000 kilogrammes of the mineral in a month, but now she barely gets 500 kilogrammes because workers are dumping the work, and new viable sites are not found after old ones are depleted.
"People are not doing the work anymore," Ms Chattong said.
"This, compounded by insecurity, may be responsible for the low supply, and I also think the miners are yet to discover new sites that have the tin deposits; that's why we are not getting enough."
This point was echoed by Dorcas Jummia, an assistant manager at Spectrum, a mineral processing company in Jos. Ms Jummia said supply has been meagre in recent years.
"We don't get enough supply like we used to," Ms Jummia said. The company she works for got up to 40,000 kilogrammes of tin in a week, but now it struggles to get 5,000 kilogrammes. "Throughout this year, the supply has been low. It worsened in August because of the rain."
Green mineral mined without respect for environmental standards
Mining in Barkin Ladi is done with crude equipment and involves many hands. Sometimes, miners dig up to 60 feet to locate tin deposits. This process could last up to two weeks, depending on the number of people and the location they are digging.
Some sites are in remote places that are hard to reach for security and regulatory officials, allowing locals to extract illegally and without compliance with environmental and social standards in Nigeria's mining laws.
Using buckets, shovels, and a pulley system made from tree trunks and a cable, these miners plunge into the pit with head torches pulling out dirt. Miners dig deep in search of tin ore and constantly face the risk of accidents such as drowning and landslides.
Researchers said most artisanal miners lack the proper skill to extract minerals from the subsurface geology. Random pit digging to access mineralised zones is more of a competition amongst the artisanal miners to make quick cash.
From dawn, the mine buzzes with the sound of hundreds of men, women and even children in Barkin Ladi. Some crouch over shallow streams, sloshing the ochre-coloured dirt around the raw mineral in buckets until the dark grey metal appears.
Mr Isaiah and his co-workers are operating unlawfully in Barkin Ladi.
President Bola Tinubu attributed the escalation of violence in the country's north to unlawful mining. According to SBM intelligence, a Lagos-based research firm, the cost of illegal mining of all types across Nigeria is estimated at $10 billion annually.
To address illegal mining, Dauda Garuba, the director of the think tank Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), said the government must liberalise the licence acquisition process to enable people with the requisite means to secure permits.
"They have to fast-track ongoing efforts to formalise artisanal miners in such a way that will encourage the growth of investment capital in the sector," Mr Garuba said.
A few metres away from Mr Isaiah's mining site, Jona Pam operates a small-scale mining site in the Kuwait area of Barkin Ladi. Mr Pam led a group of nine artisans. He said they used to get up to 30 kilogrammes of the mineral whenever the group was "lucky" enough to dig where the tin was abundant.
But these days, Mr Pam said, they could spend the whole day digging without getting two kilogrammes of the mineral.
"I cannot tell you if the tin is waning because we don't know that yet," said Segun Tomori, spokesperson for the minister of solid minerals development. "But we are collaborating with the state governments to develop the mining sector in their states while providing the right regulatory frameworks for efficient governance."
'Finite'
Mr Garuba, the CDD director, told PREMIUM TIMES that the peak time of tin might have passed.
"Most natural resources are finite, non-renewable. That is why their effective management to benefit the people is often stressed," he said.
Apart from tin, Nigeria has untapped mining resources, from industrial metals to precious stones, columbite to tantalite, and limestone to zinc. Dele Alake, Nigeria's minister of solid minerals development, stated on 29 April that the country is endowed with minerals valued at a conservative $750 billion.
The government recently recruited 2,200 mining marshals to address illegal mining and promote a just and secure mining sector. Dozens of people were taken into custody by the government in connection with illicit mining operations, in what the mining industry called "the coercive component of the administration's carrot and stick approach to combating illegal mining undermining security in the sector."
In the most recent arrests in August, officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) conducted a raid in the Bukuru area of Plateau State. The operation resulted in the arrest of 15 individuals, most of them minors, according to a statement by NSCDC.
Officials said profits from illicit mining practices have helped arm militia groups in the north of the county.
"The artisans have been operating illegally for decades, and nobody was paying attention to it," said Mr Tomori, the spokesperson for the minister of solid minerals.
Victor Mapak, another supplier in Plateau State, told PREMIUM TIMES that the market has been uncertain this year. Generally, the "mineral is not as much as it used to be, partly because the miners have exhausted much of what is underground."
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PREMIUM TIMES spoke to a top official of Astro Minerals Limited on the mineral supply to their company.
"The tin is getting scarcer by the day. We are not getting supply for several reasons. First, the crisis bedevilling the state makes it difficult for the miners to extract, then the locals don't have sophisticated tools, and there's a heated competition among traders and processing companies," said the official, who asked not to be named because he could not speak publicly on the trade issue.
"All these are factors affecting the supply and ultimately the scarcity of the mineral."'
Mr Mapak, the supplier, said, "We need to supply large quantities of materials. A single company may be demanding up to 20,000 kilogrammes of tin from us (traders), and what we can supply this year is around 3,000 kilogrammes in a month. With the rainfall now, we can only get 500 kilogrammes."
Data required
Establishing the mineral's availability underground is difficult because Nigeria lacks reliable geological data.
PwC Nigeria, a research and consultancy firm, said one major hindrance to the industry's development is the lack of mineral resource data.
"Public dissemination of comprehensive and precise data on revenue creation, expenses, and other critical statistics is required. In addition to fostering good governance, this will make it possible for stakeholders and civil society organisations to monitor and evaluate projects effectively."
Mr Samuel, now a salesperson, misses mining and hopes to return to extraction one day.
"My fear is the risk attached, and I am not sure what the future will be for tin mining."
This story was sponsored by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development under its Just Energy Transition Minerals Challenge Project.
