Amid mounting allegations of funding of banditry through illegal mining, Niger State government has begun profiling miners in the state.
The exercise is to identify licenced miners and to key them into the fight against banditry and check the linkages between illegal miners and bandits.
The commissioner for mineral resources, Garba Sabo Yahaya, at a meeting with miners said the ministry desires to have accurate data on mining activities in the state.
Yahaya said the ministry has been inundated with complaints from the bandits’ prone communities on how miners pay bandits to access sites, thereby strengthening the nefarious activities of the bandits.
In an interview after the meeting, the chairman of the Miners’ Association, Mohammed Mambo, said the members of the group had no link with bandits.
He, however, said the profiling of the members of the association was a welcome development as it could bring sanity to the sector and the state.
He promised that the association would assist the state government in whatever capacity to develop the state.