{"id":72694,"date":"2025-08-11T06:07:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=72694"},"modified":"2025-08-11T06:07:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T06:07:27","slug":"poverty-fuels-illegal-mining-in-nigeria-gmman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/08\/11\/poverty-fuels-illegal-mining-in-nigeria-gmman\/","title":{"rendered":"Poverty Fuels Illegal Mining in Nigeria -GMMAN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Omoniyi David<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders in Nigeria\u2019s mining sector have warned that illegal mining will persist as long as widespread poverty continues to push citizens into the activity for survival.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in Abuja, President of the Gemstone Miners and Marketers Association of Nigeria (GMMAN), Adeniran Ajibade, said poverty makes it difficult to stop people from scavenging for minerals, noting that many artisanal miners are migratory and hard to regulate.<\/p>\n<p>He recalled that the government, under a 2007 World Bank-supported reform, created the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Department to register and train miners.<\/p>\n<p>While the introduction of Mining Marshals in 2024 has helped curb large-scale illegal mining, Ajibade admitted that apprehending individuals remains a challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Citing the National Bureau of Statistics\u2019 Multidimensional Poverty Index, stakeholders noted that 63% of Nigerians live in poverty; 72% in rural areas compared to 42% in urban centres, making illegal mining a lifeline for many.<\/p>\n<p>Executive Director of Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), Philip Jakpor, said poverty also drives communities to mine illegally to protect their resources from external exploitation, stressing the need for stricter enforcement of mining laws.<\/p>\n<p>Miner Ladidi Yakubu alleged that some large-scale illegal mining operators fund banditry, exploiting the desperation of the poor to commit crimes.<\/p>\n<p>She urged urgent government action to tackle the nation\u2019s economic hardship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Omoniyi David Stakeholders in Nigeria\u2019s mining sector have warned that illegal mining will persist as long as widespread poverty continues to push citizens into the activity for survival. Speaking in Abuja, President of the Gemstone Miners and Marketers Association of Nigeria (GMMAN), Adeniran Ajibade, said poverty makes it difficult to stop people from scavenging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":72695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-72694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72696,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72694\/revisions\/72696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}