Ondo agency, FG at loggerhead while miner operating with child labour goes unchecked

By solacebase.com On Dec 25, 2023

Ondo State, Child Labour, Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act, Miner,Child Rights Act , — Workers without safety gear.

This report by Development News Nigeria, DNN, Alaba Adeyemi takes a look into the activities of an illegal Quarry at Ijigba, Ondo state operating in contravention of the 2007 Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act.

At the twilight of Olusegun Mimiko’s administration as the governor of Ondo state, projects that stood out as bringing succor to the people of Akure metropolis were the Fiwasaye-Oba-Ile-Akure Airport and the Ijoka Road-Cannan Land-Ijigba to Oda road. While the first is standing and smooth, the latter has crumbled.

Arabambi Oluwaseun, a resident of the Canaan Land area, fingered tipper drivers as the cause of the deplorable state of their road.

Ijigba to Oda road

“Tipper drivers using the road are the ones that spoiled it. This road was constructed some years ago but it has crumbled”.

The father of one however said that the bad road is the least of their problems caused by the miners. He said, “The quarry people, at Ijigba’s last bus stop, have caused us so much pain. They have destroyed the landscape, spoilt our road, and messed up our water.”

THE QUARRY

An investigation by DNN revealed that the site is a small-scale quarry operating under no specific name, and about seven persons were sighted working with crude implements without safety gear. A resident who pleaded anonymity described how one of the workers died at the site a couple of years ago.

“They were mining the hills for gravel and laterite when a portion of the hill caved in and crushed one of the workers to death,” he said.

Workers without safety gear.

The quarry is located in a residential area, and the mining of laterite started after the area had been built up. This is in total contravention of the 2007 Nigerian Mineral and Mining Act. Chapter 1, part 1, section 3c of the act exempts places “occupied by any town, village, market, burial ground or cemetery ancestral, sacred or archeological site, appropriate for a railway or situated within fifty meters of a railway or fifty meters of any government or public building, reservoir, dam or public road”.

These activities have resulted in erosion which has led to the destruction of houses in the area. Some house owners in the area have also abandoned their houses due to incessant flooding due to the destruction of the topography.

Residential houses affected by erosion

Several residents of the area have lost their houses, church buildings, and Shops to erosion.

CHILD LABOUR

When DNN visited the site, a couple of children were seen working at the quarry, even worse, they had no PPE. Having children work there, be it in good or bad conditions is against the provisions of the Child Rights Act of 2003.

A child at the quarry site

Section 28 (prohibition of exploitative labor) sub 1-4 of the Act says it is offensive to employ a child. Subsection 1 a-d states Subject to this Act, no child shall be-

(a) subjected to any forced or exploitative labor; (b) employed to work in any capacity except where he is employed by a member of his family on light work of an agricultural, horticultural, or domestic character; (c) required, in any case, to lift, carry, or move anything so heavy as to be likely to adversely affect his physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development;

(d) employed as a domestic help outside his own home or family environment.

(2) No child shall be employed or work in an industrial undertaking and nothing in this

subsection shall apply to work done by children in technical schools or similar approved institutions if the work is supervised by the appropriate authority.

(3) Any person who contravenes provisions of subsection (1) or (2) of this section commits an offense and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty thousand naira or imprisonment for a term of five years or to both such fine and imprisonment.

(4) Where an offense under this section is committed by a body corporate, any person who at

at the time of the commission of the offense, a proprietor, director, general manager, or other similar officer, servant, or agent of the body corporate shall be deemed to have jointly and severally committed the offense and may be liable on conviction to a fine.

After several visits, DNN can report that children working at the site is not a one-off event, but regular. It is a regular occurrence to find children at the site cracking stones into gravel with small hammers.

The ownership of the company has remained a secret, there is no signpost in and around the premises of the company to know who they are.

DNN attempted to find out the exact owners of the site. It was discovered that some members of a family led by an individual known as Omojesu, claiming to be the rightful owners of the land in the area are the ones operating on the site.

A resident who knows how it all began pleaded anonymity and told how it began.

“They told us that they want to help us to create new roads that will help us access the other end of the hills easily, but they began to dig everywhere, till now, no new path linking the other side has been created”.

The resultant erosion has led to the collapse of some buildings and some house owners have fled their homes.

AUTHORITIES AT LOGGERHEAD

According to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, mining is under the exclusive list, this implies that the Federal Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals regulates the activities of small and large-scale miners across Nigeria.

However, it appears that the Ondo state office of the ministry is in cahoots with many of the artisanal miners of sand and laterites. On the 9th of November, the Ondo State Environmental Protection Agency led by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Environment Oyeniyi Oseni announced that the agency had uncovered illegal sand mines with Akure South and Akure North local governments.

The agency described the level of degradation caused to the environment by the activities of the miners as alarming.

Environmental degradation around mining sites.

A meeting was subsequently held between the association of Sand quarry owners and operators and the representatives of the agency where the agency warned against the rampant destruction of the environment.

But in a shocking twist one Engineer Jide Akinleye, a Federal Mines Officer released a statement on behalf of the Ondo state office of the ministry where he described the Ondo State Environmental Protection Agency as “interlopers getting involved in undue interference in mines which is an exclusive right of the Federal government.”

In a swift reaction, the Ondo State Environmental Protection Agency claimed it is doing a legitimate job backed up by the Nigerian Mineral and Mine Laws while describing the Federal Ministry of Mines as a failure.

“It is however noteworthy that the representatives of the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals in Ondo State have failed woefully in carrying out this responsibility, thus creating a wide vacuum in environmental protection in the State ”

A registered Surveyor, who wants his identity protected who spoke to DNN reporter about the Ijigba quarry site described the activities at the site as a cesspool of corruption “The whole thing is a scam, those mining laterites and stones in that place are known friends of some person at the ministry, if you complain from today till tomorrow nothing will happen.”

Attempts to speak to the Ondo State Commissioner for Environment were not successful, he did not receive his phone calls nor returned the missed calls. However, the Special Assistant to the governor on environment responded to a message sent to him with “Whatever we are doing to regulate sand quarrying is based on those laws and regulations which empower the State Government.”

As agencies of government at the state and Federal levels continue to flex muscles for superiority, the Ijgba-Davog road continues to crumble, the volume of erosion continues to increase and the environment suffers more.

This investigation is produced with support from Civic Media Lab.