Illegal mining: Nigeria cannot police its minerals into prosperity

Nigeria’s latest illegal mining figures should force a serious rethink of how the country governs its mineral wealth. Between March 2024 and August 2026, Mining Marshals identified 374 illegal mining sites across 17 states, according to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake. Of these, 108 sites have been cleared, while 743 suspects have been arrested. The authorities have prosecuted 165 cases involving 430 accused persons and secured five convictions.

These numbers tell two stories at once. The first is that government enforcement has become considerably more visible. The second, and more troubling, is that illegal mining remains sufficiently entrenched for hundreds of sites to continue operating outside the law.

The Federal Government deserves credit for expanding the Mining Marshals and pursuing enforcement across the country. However, the objective cannot be reduced to discovering pits, arresting miners and shutting down sites. If the same locations, operators and networks can return after enforcement teams leave, the exercise becomes a recurring contest between government patrols and an adaptable underground economy.

The scale of the problem also makes it difficult to sustain the argument that illegal mining is simply the work of isolated individuals digging for survival. Investigations and official statements point to a broader chain involving miners, labourers, buyers, middlemen, financiers and processors. The Ministry has also raised concerns about the involvement of foreign nationals in unauthorised mining and mineral trading.

This matters because Nigeria’s mineral resources are public assets. Gold, lithium, mica, tantalite and other commercially valuable deposits can generate employment, investment, royalties and tax revenue when extracted within a functioning regulatory framework. When extraction moves underground, the country loses more than the minerals themselves. It loses revenue, regulatory control and the ability to determine who is profiting from its natural resources.

The environmental consequences are equally serious. Mining pits left unsecured can become death traps, while uncontrolled excavation damages farmland, forests and water sources. In communities dependent on agriculture, the destruction of productive land can create a vicious cycle in which residents become increasingly dependent on the very illicit economy that is degrading their environment.

There is also a security dimension that government can no longer treat as secondary. In parts of the North-West and North-Central, illegal mining has intersected with banditry, kidnapping and other criminal activity. The House of Representatives Committee on Mineral Exploitation, Security and Anti-Money Laundering has described illegal mining as a sophisticated national threat, citing its implications for security, revenue generation, environmental sustainability and governance.

The recent tragedy involving suspected illegal miners in Niger State makes the need for a more coherent approach even more urgent. Thirty-seven suspected illegal miners reportedly died while in NSCDC custody after their arrest during enforcement operations, prompting the Federal Government to suspend 20 officers and establish an independent committee to investigate the circumstances of the deaths.

That incident should reinforce an essential principle: enforcing mining laws cannot mean abandoning the rights and dignity of those accused of breaking them. The state has a responsibility to protect citizens in custody, just as it has a responsibility to protect licensed operators, mining communities and the environment from illegal exploitation.

The five convictions recorded from 165 prosecuted cases also raise questions about the effectiveness of the enforcement chain. Arrests can produce impressive statistics, yet convictions provide the stronger measure of whether the law is actually deterring offenders. Government therefore needs to examine where cases are being lost, how evidence is gathered, whether investigations are adequately resourced and whether prosecution agencies have the specialist capacity required for complex mining and financial-crime cases. There is another uncomfortable question. Who finances illegal mining?

The men and women working inside dangerous pits are the most visible part of the operation. They are unlikely to constitute the entire commercial structure. Someone purchases the minerals. Someone transports them. Someone provides equipment and working capital. Someone processes or exports them. If enforcement concentrates overwhelmingly on labourers at mining sites while financiers, buyers and the channels through which minerals enter legitimate markets remain untouched, the supply chain will simply regenerate.

The Government’s own experience in Kogi illustrates why community involvement also matters. The Ministry said investigations found that many illegal miners were indigenes operating with the support of elders, traditional rulers and local government functionaries.

That finding should make enforcement more sophisticated. Community leaders who facilitate illegal mining should face consequences where evidence establishes their involvement, while communities willing to support lawful mining should have a meaningful stake in the formal economy.

Formalisation must therefore accompany enforcement. Artisanal and small-scale miners who can operate safely and legally should have pathways into the regulated sector, including access to licences, technical support, safer equipment and legitimate markets. Driving every informal miner out of an area without creating lawful alternatives can simply displace the activity to another location.

Nigeria has spent decades speaking about diversifying its economy beyond oil. Its mineral resources offer part of that opportunity, yet diversification cannot succeed if valuable deposits are extracted through criminal networks while legitimate operators struggle with insecurity, regulation and access to land.

The Federal Government’s agreement with the United States to deepen American investment in Nigeria’s mining sector and its broader effort to attract investment into the country’s estimated mineral wealth make this even more important. Investors need to know that mineral titles mean something, that licensed operations will be protected and that the state can control illegal competition.

The 374 illegal sites should therefore be treated as more than a statistic for an enforcement campaign. They are evidence of a governance problem.

Nigeria needs a mining regime in which licences are transparent, environmental obligations are enforced, mineral movements can be traced, financial flows are investigated and prosecutions reach the people who organise and profit from illegal extraction. It needs security agencies, mining regulators, prosecutors, environmental authorities and financial-crime investigators working from the same intelligence.

Above all, enforcement must produce lasting results. A cleared mining site that becomes active again months later represents little progress. An arrested miner whose case collapses represents little deterrence. A mineral-rich community left poorer and more polluted after years of extraction represents a failure of public policy.

Nigeria possesses the mineral wealth. The more difficult task is building the institutions capable of governing it. The discovery of 374 illegal mining sites should therefore mark the beginning of a deeper national effort to secure the country’s mineral economy, rather than another enforcement statistic that fades from public attention once the headlines move on.