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Tin
Mining Communities Confront Hobson’s Choice
For over a century,
tin mining devastated the rich farmlands of communities in Jos Plateau,
creating pits dubbed death traps. Now the people are set to transform
their travails into fortune, reports TONY IYARE
This afternoon,
as he got immersed in making ridges on his farm located near a heavily
devastated area in Barkin Ladi, Plateau State, Abubakar Abdullahi,
23 was greatly troubled. He had been filled with thoughts of renewed
agitation that the pits which dot the tin mining areas in the Plateau
region be closed because they constituted environmental hazards
and death traps.
One of the pits
now transformed into a pond is the source of water supply to Abdullahi’s
farm where he grows garden eggs, tomatoes, lettuce, sweet pepper,
onions, water-leaf and maize. On a good year after hiring a tractor
to till the soil for N1,500, he makes between N70,000 to N100,000
from the proceeds from the farm which is usually sold at the nearby
Mararaba Forom market.
A fulani by
extraction, Abdullahi who bought a water pumping machine to irrigate
his farm at N13,000 says covering the pits will be misplaced since
they are a source of irrigation to his farm. He is not alone in
this growing concern by many residents of the Jos Plateau who now
perceive the cover-the-pits campaign as capable of undermining their
economic base. Another farmer, Abubakar Yau, 20 shares his passion.
Yau, a Beriberi whose tomato farm is located parallel to a pond
also believes that it does not make sense to seek to cover the pits
from where his farm is regularly watered. Also a local tin miner
who makes N20,000 from his occasional haul, Yau makes N70,000 from
his tomato farm yearly when business is good.
Like the two
farmers, many communities in the Plateau region are turning around
the devastation wrought by extensive mining activities which has
gone on in the area for more than 100 years. Jaspa Dung, 39, a specialist
in soil and vegetation studies told NATIONAL INTEREST in Jos that
before now it was commonplace to talk glibly of the adverse effects
of tin mining. “What used to be disadvantages are now being harnessed
for the benefit of the people”, Dung, a lecturer in the department
of Geography, University of Jos who is also knowledgeable in geographic
information, remote sensing and computer application explained.
The mining pits which hitherto were considered death traps now serve
as sources of water not only for irrigation but for domestic and
industrial uses. Jos International Breweries now uses one of the
ponds solely for its water supply. They also serve as drinking points
for cattle. The mine ponds are used to breed the popular rock water
fish. The pits are used for sanitary land fills by the Jos Metropolitan
Development Board JMDB which dumps human waste in them.
The mining dumps
which are used for road construction, making of blocks and building
of houses also provides fine attraction to tourists. Rayfield Holiday
Resort Hotel, a new outfit is exploiting one of the ponds for rowing
activities by its guests. Motor mechanics are not left out in this
race to confront the choice of Hobson. Some of them have massed
into one of the pits in Farin Gada, a northern strip of Jos City
to carry out their trade. The positive effect which has seen farmlands
sprouting near the ponds and recording bumper harvest of tomatoes,
sweet pepper, carrots, onions, spinnages, carbages, lettuce, Irish
potatoes and apple seem to have lately tempered agitation by the
local community that the pits be filled up. In fact the people have
gone on to classify the ponds into those exclusively for consumption
and other uses. Any one who sidetracks this classification and defecates
into a pond set aside for human consumption is likely to attract
the edge of the People’s tongue.
Although tin
mining began in the Plateau region in 1904, the extensive devastation
of farmlands was accelerated with the ushering of the second phase
of the industry which saw the introduction of earth moving machines
like caterpillars, graders and drag lines. During this period the
extent of devastation was much because mining by its nature involves
a number of operations such as clearing of the entire mining area
of its vegetation. The first casualty was therefore the original
vegetation that existed in the Jos Plateau. Since what obtained
on the Jos Plateau was alluvial tin, associated with younger granite,
the principal mining method was the open cast mining which involved
the removal of the overburden layer to get to the tin mining layer.
This created two immediate problems. The excavation created mine
pits which when filled with rain water are transformed into mine
ponds while the dumping of the overburden layer on the adjacent
land created mine dumps. This process adversely affected rich agricultural
lands as it amounted to double jeopardy for the people.
The overburden
layer accelerated soil erosion and land degradation. This also interfered
with the flow of rivers, affected underground water and lowered
the water table. This has been evidenced in villages which initially
had water from wells with moderate depths but now have to dig deeper
to get water . Sometimes the wells dry up. The mining companies
were expected by law to do some percentage restoration of the land
while government was supposed to do reclamation and rehabilitation
to ensure that the land was returned to its original form. Some
of these were done up to 1947. After this period, the regulation
was feebly enforced and the mining companies opted to look the other
way. Retrieving the land from the companies on the expiration of
their lease was like passing a camel through a needle’s eye. Although
the mining companies leased the mining lands from the local people
which are expected to be rehabilitated and returned to its original
owners after 99 years, they found a way about it. It was found out
that about five years to the expiration of the lease, the leasee
either renew the mining lease or resell the leases to other companies
or individuals for uses other than mining.
By this way
it becomes a hard nut for the original owners to get back the mining
lands. Tin mining did not begin with European intrusion to Nigeria.
Before the advent of colonialism, the Berom had been involved in
tin mining and had local furnaces for smelting tin for their farm
implements. In fact during the World Grade Expedition of 1880, some
European merchants discovered tin bars with some Hausa traders in
Luerem Delma in present day Sokoto State and later traced its origin
to River Ngel on the Jos Plateau. Having established the presence
of tin in commercial quantity here, the Colonial government banned
its mining by the local people and gave the sole prospecting rights
including smelting to the Royal Niger Company. By the 1960s, as
many as 157 international mining companies were operating on the
Jos Plateau.
The first phase
began in Jos-Naraguta-Gurum zone. The second phase was confined
to Rayfield-Bukuru-Sabongida Kanar and Bisichi zone while the third
phase is located in Barkin Ladi-Ganaropp-Kuba-Dorowa zone. Dung
whose father worked for one of these mining concerns, explained
that another problem associated with the tin mining industry was
what he called “pacification of labour”. According to him, “the
people did not go to the tin mines out of their free will. They
were forced. Apart from forced labour, other condition like community
tax were made compulsory while the wage was relatively higher than
other sectors in order to persuade the local people to leave their
farms and work on the mines”. Tin mining itself brought some benefits
to the region. First was the provision of certain social amenities.
The mining companies
embarked on the massive construction of roads although meant to
service the mines but also became useful to the people. They also
built schools, hospitals, clinics, housing units and provided electricity.
The General Hospital at Barkin Ladi which has now been taken over
by government was built by Almagamated Tin Mines of Nigeria ATMN.
People who were employed in the mines got a lot of money, their
welfare condition was elevated. The mining companies paid royalty
to government. They also trained technical staff who later worked
in Railways, the Steel Rolling Plant and Plateau Radio and Television
station PRTV.
The companies
extended this training to miners children. They ran free paying
primary schools and gave scholarships to cover the secondary education.
Dung benefited from this training up to class three before the mining
companies started winding up their operations. Following the decline
in tin mining in the 70s, most of the unskilled workers resorted
to other activities such as farming since most of the areas are
basically agrarian and trading. They also engaged themselves in
informal farming. During the dry season they combine farming and
mining. In the raining season they are completely engaged in farming.
The peoples’ traditional method of tin mining is called the loto
method which involves digging a hole like a well which could be
between 20 to 30 metres deep before digging horizontally through
the use of wall pillars. With an instrument called gamajigo the
local miners would sample the land to determine the commercial value
of the tin available. Because they know the wall is susceptible
to collapse, they leave some areas undisturbed but sometimes they
also prospect here thereby exposing themselves to grave dangers.
The mining walls
regularly collapses burying the local miners alive. Yau who penultimate
Sunday got a big haul in a pond which transverses his farm also
in Barkin Ladi, told NATIONAL INTEREST that in spite of the dangers
associated with the local method of tin mining, they cannot stop
it. “I have no choice because I did not go to school. Rather than
just idling away in the town or stealing, I prefer to do this to
survive”. The miners are not alone at the receiving end of these
hazards. Human and animal movement in mining areas are imperiled.
It was a harrowing scene watching Audu Sale, a fulani herdsman and
five others as they battle in vain to save one of his cattle which
sauntered into one of the mining holes in Barkin Ladi. Even when
it was obvious that the cattle’s breathe was waning, a rather disconsolate
Audu would not give in to entreaties by two butchers who offered
to buy it off on the cheap.
Like King Saul
who wore blinkers before the Witch of Endear, saying “I will not
eat”, Sale would not budge saying “I will not sell”. It is not also
smooth sale for farmers who have to apply different grades of fertilizers
to be able to nourish the soil. Said Dung, “soil erosion leads to
soil impoverishment. Farmers have to apply fertilizers and other
soil conditioners more than three times to be able to get a yield”.
The cost to the people is very high as there is little government
support in this regard. The cost of analysing the soil and preparing
it for planting is prohibitive. You may require 30 soil samples
in a particular plot of land at the initial stage. The number of
samples is usually dependent on the terrain. If the terrain is rugged
like the Jos Plateau, a lot more samples are required since the
soil changes in short distances. Each cost about N2,500 for chemical
analysis and another N1,500 each for physical analysis.
The farmers
who operate largely at subsistence level can hardly afford these
costs. That’s why agitation have also been rife for the creation
of a Solid Minerals Producing Areas Commission to take care of the
environmental degradation associated with tin mining activities.
The people are clamouring that further mining operations in the
area, which also has other minerals like kaolin, columbite and other
precious stones, should be environmentally friendly. No where else
is the diminishing operations of tin mining more obvious than the
minefield engineering department of ATMN in Bukuru, south of Jos
town. Gloomy faces of malnourished security men who had not been
paid for the past one year and three months would usually welcome
any visitor to this workshop formerly manned by 300 staff. One of
the security men, Umaru Arabi, 65 who has worked with ATMN for 26
years recalled the happy days. “I was here when the whites were
running this company. In those days this place was a beehive running
three shifts”, he said. Sharing their awry experience since the
management of ATMN passed on to Nigerians, Arabi and his colleagues
who complained that their paltry N1,800 monthly salary is paid in
default threatened. “If by September 21 our demands for payment
of salaries is not met, we shall go on strike”, they chorused.
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