By Hon. Rotimi Makinde
Nigeria is sitting on wealth, but we are harvesting war and hunger.
From Zamfara to Niger, from Kaduna to Plateau, the story is the same. Gold, lithium and other minerals are being dug illegally at night. Armed men provide “security”. Foreigners are brought in with no records. Communities are impoverished while a few men get rich. And the money from those pits is buying the bullets that are killing Nigerians today.
What is more troubling is that *I understand some people are even desperate to be governor, reps or assembly members just to be in power and in the government corridor, and to hide under such status to protect their gold mining ventures*. When political office becomes a shield for crime, then the law has lost and insecurity has won.
We ignored regulation, and now terrorists are regulating us. In Zamfara, mining became the reason for mass killings. In Niger and Kaduna, bandits now “tax” miners. The same pits that should create jobs have become recruitment grounds for criminals. When we allow mining to thrive outside the law, we are funding the very insecurity that is consuming us.
We have seen this movie before. When oil was discovered in Oloibiri, it was celebrated as a national breakthrough. It should have turned the town into an Eldorado. Instead, a few men became rich and lorded over the people. The community got pollution and neglect. Today that greed has bred militancy, kidnapping and sabotage that put the Niger Delta and the nation in a bad light.
Now the same pattern is coming to our land, and it is worse.
Take *Ile-Ife and indeed Osun State*. We are blessed with gold, lithium, tantalite and granite. The resources are enormous. But the control is in the hands of a few. They are prospering today. Big cars, mansions, private jets. Yet the peace is fragile. War is just minutes away.
*Today, miners sack farmers from their farms, destroy their plants and enjoy free control of their land. Farmers are abandoning their traditional roles and becoming miners.* We are trading food for gold. We are trading our future for quick money. When the farms die, hunger will follow. And when the minerals finish, those same men will carry guns and begin to fetch people for ransom.
In our communities now, many have rushed into mining. They are bringing in outsiders and mostly foreigners to do the work. No license, no documentation, no benefit to the people. Some are even doing this with the connivance of compromised elements. *Our royal fathers, the monarchs who are custodians of the land, must not allow their domains to be turned into pits of blood and banditry.* The throne must stand for the people, not for a few miners.
Government must act now. Every mining site in Osun and across Nigeria must be licensed. Farmlands must be protected by law. Every operator and every foreigner must be documented and tracked. We must secure mining corridors the same way we protect oil installations. Those aiding illegal mining, including politicians and anyone hiding under traditional authority, must face the law. And communities that host these minerals must see schools, hospitals, roads and jobs. When people benefit legally, they will reject illegal miners.
To citizens, silence will cost us dearly. Ask who approved that pit in your village. Ask who is bankrolling it and why some people are desperate for power. Our *monarchs* must rise and protect their land. Do not patronize minerals with no trace because you may be buying the weapon that will be used against you. Do not allow our youths to abandon the farm for the pit. That pit is a trap set for our future.
Oloibiri taught us a bitter lesson. Zamfara is teaching us another. Minerals without law become bullets, and land without farmers becomes hunger.
If we continue with this attitude of dig anywhere, sack anybody, sell anyhow and bribe anyone, then we should be ready to live permanently with insecurity and famine.
The next crisis will not start with a gunshot. It will start with a farm we allowed to be destroyed.
For the sake of Ile-Ife, for the sake of Osun, and for the sake of the Nigeria our children will inherit, let us fix mining before it destroys us.
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