As Mining Marshals for the mining sector clocked one year after their official inauguration, the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr Dele Alake, disclosed on Friday that over 3,000 illegal gold miners had been flushed out.

Speaking during a press briefing at the Ministry’s headquarters in Abuja to mark one year of the Mining Marshals safeguarding the solid minerals sector against illegal miners, Alake said the Mining Marshals’ operations are really impacting the sector positively based on their achievements to sanitize the sector.

According to him, in the first year, the Mining Marshals held direct engagements across 10 states of Niger, Kogi, Nasarawa, Akwa Ibom, Ondo, Kaduna, Enugu, Abia, Kwara and the Federal Capital Territory, while in 2025, their operations shall be strengthened all over the country to straighten the sector and protect the nation’s solid minerals.

He said: “The corps of 2,220 officers that formed the pioneer Mining Marshals have increased by 450 to 2,670 today due to the injections of recruits of 350 and 100 officers during the year.

“No doubt, the activation of a new corps to enforce the provisions of the Nigerian Mining and Minerals Law, 2007, and the regulations sent shivers down the spine of illegal miners. They realised that it would no longer be business as usual.

“Yet, crafting an intervention force required distinct combat orientation, offensive and defensive strategy.

“The Mining Marshals were going to deal with a new set of enemies: illegal miners that occupy areas with rich mineral deposits, loot the mineral wealth of the country and cart them away for sale.

“Like locusts, they invade areas licensed to companies and make it impossible for the legal owners to have access to their sites. Against the law that forbids mining in forest reserves, national parks, schools and built-up areas, these saboteurs not only defy the law by their operations in restricted areas, they deploy weapons against law enforcement officers. It is on record that the National Parks Service lost officers at the Oyo National Park in their efforts to checkmate illegal miners.

“The gravity of illegal mining worsened with the emergence of companies that collaborate with individual miners to perpetrate this evil. While individual illegal miners are unable to excavate deeply due to the limitations of modern equipment and finance, corporate collaborators encourage deeper excavation and scale up the criminality.

“To demonstrate that there has been a clear paradigm shift in the strategy for containing illegal mining, the Mining Marshals have arrested 327 persons in the last year. The cases are being prosecuted at various courts across the country.



https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/03/1-year-of-mining-marshals-over-3000-illegal-gold-miners-flushed-out-alake/