NGO, Stakeholders Accuse FG, Others Of ‘Exploiting’ Mining Communities

A Non-Governmental Organization, Global Rights, has accused the federal government and critical stakeholders of exploiting mining communities, including taking decisions without carrying host communities along. Addressing participants at the Third West African Mining Host Community “Indaba” in Abuja on Wednesday, the Executive Director, Global Rights, Abiodun Baiyewu, said, due to faulty governance systems, the extraction and trade of the resources found in mining communities often fuel conflicts, corruption and violence, hence the need to find solutions to the menace.  She said: “Annually, across several platforms across the world, governments and mining companies gather to decide our fate. The fate of our ancestral lands and of our children yet unborn. At these confabs, the people most impacted – extractive host communities are excluded. How do you decide for us without us? Afterall, we are the ones who know where the shoe pinches. We are the ones whose lands are desecrated, whose resilience are weakened. We are the ones. “So, we chose to represent ourselves, to give ourselves agency to decide our own future as the African Mining Vision and African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights has accorded us in Sections 20-22. This annual gathering unites us as a people to deliberate and find solutions to the common challenges that we are confronted with as West Africans. It is a platform for open and inclusive dialogue where ideas, experiences, and solutions are shared collectively. “We have also chosen to invite governments and mining companies. Perhaps, if they listen to us and dialogue with us, they might finally understand the powers that we have so generously bestowed on them are to protect our rights. Perhaps, they might understand afresh that the security of states start with the security of the people within the state, and adopt a human security paradigm to address the challenges around the efficient exploitation of our resources. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the wealth of West Africa’s minerals benefits the many, rather than the few and that it becomes a catalyst for peace, development and progress.” Speaking earlier, the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said there is need for the creation of a unique tax force for the mining sector to combat insecurity and other issues affecting it.