Nigeria’s Deadly Mining Pits: Who Profits While Miners Die?

As women and children descend into dangerous mining pits, deaths continue to mount. But beyond the bodies, a bigger question remains: who profits from the minerals they risk their lives to extract? In this report, CHRISTIANA NWAOGU examines the dangerous and often hidden chain behind Nigeria’s illegal mining economy, where vulnerable Nigerians at the bottom of the chain continue to pay the supreme price.
From Taraba to Zamfara, Niger to Nasarawa states, the sad stories are strikingly similar. Mining pits collapse, claiming lives, while cases of lead poisoning continue to expose the deadly consequences of unsafe mining practices. Yet the victims inside the pits are rarely the people wh...