Gold, gold…, but no glitter in Garin Auwal

For a decade, Chinese companies have been mining gold in Garin Auwal, Kebbi State, but the community has nothing to show for the huge money that the Asians have made in those years. So, the youths have taken it upon themselves to engage in the same business. AYODELE AJOGE gives an insight into the challenges the people go through.

THE proverb “All that glitters is not gold” is very apt, when the poverty that the people of Garin Auwal are being subjected to is taken into consideration, as the abundant deposit of gold has not translated into wealth for the people of the Fakai Local Government Area of Kebbi State community.

Garin Auwal, also called Ginda Zinary (the house of gold) by the locals because of its huge deposit of gold, has no social and structural infrastructure to boast of, even as illegal gold mining goes on. Also, gold exploration in the state, managed mostly by Chinese miners for the past 10 years, has left nothing but complete neglect of the host community.

Of particular note is a Chinese company that has engaged in gold mining in the village, and has virtually made the village its home. The Chinese investors have settled down with their families in Gidan Zinary. The company installed heavy duty machines to excavate gold with the attendant negative effects on the environment. The excavation has only left an eyesore to first time visitors nothing but environmental degradation is caused mainly by the unrestricted abuse of the land during massive excavations.

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However, it is not only the foreigners that mine gold in the community. There are about 1,000 youths who are also involved in gold mining in the state. Many of them claimed they took to mining because the major operators refused to employ them. But despite managing to create some form of employment for themselves, they are still no match for their Chinese competitors.

Sunday Tribune gathered that at the beginning of their operations in the area, the Chinese company projected, and entered into an agreement with the federal and state governments to mine not less than 700 ounce of gold in Garin Auwal village. But, the site manager of the company, Muhammed Adamu, defended the company when asked why it could not meet up with the agreed target. He told the Minister of Solid Minerals, Dr Kayode Fayemi, during his visit to the mining site, that, “The company was only able to produce 200 ounce of gold as against the projected 700 ounce because they had envisaged a huge deposit of the mineral. But upon the commencement of excavations, they realised that it was impossible for them to meet the monthly target.

It is true that we promised to provide the community with school, mosque and hospital, which we have not done, but which we will get them to do soon,” he said.

One of the leaders of the local miners, Abubakar Abdullahi, who admitted that they operated side-by-side with the Chinese miners faulted the site manager of the company, saying that monthly, the local miners extracted 500 ounce manually, so, the Chinese who have mining equipments like Lenter/Heister, capable of digging up to 100 meters beneath the earth, must be talking tongue-in-cheek.

“For the local miners to extract 500 ounce of gold per month, they have to climb to the top of mountain to pack stones at the mining sites, break them into pieces with local tools, and bring them down for processing. We usually get 10 grammes of gold per day from a sack of stone. Thereafter, we grind them with machines, sieve the mud and, in the process, we could get over 500 grams from a sack of stone within one month,” he told the state governor and the minister, and other visitors.

Shocked by the revelation, Fayemi and Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu berated the Chinese miners for alleged exploitative activities in the area. They became more furious when the village head, Danjuma Musa, told the governor and the minister how the company had been exploiting the residents since the investors settled in the village about a decade ago.

“For those years, they tapped our resources, but they never helped us. They promised us a school, a hospital, a mosque, among other social infrastructures, but they have not fulfilled any of their promises. The only road they have constructed here is not for the benefit of the entire community as it only serves as a link to their mining site,” he corroborated Abdullahi’s claims.

The minister, who couldn’t hide his disappointment, said his ministry would take the matter up with the firm. “We need to ask them why all their promises have not been fulfilled,” he said.

“Though they say that their expectations have not been fully realised, the ministry will investigate to see why it’s possible for local miners to produce more gold than licensed operators who are supposed to help to diversify the economy; why they have been defaulting, and the appropriate actions to be taken,” the minister added.

Fayemi also expressed the Federal Government’s readiness to enter into an agreement with the Kebbi State government and its local artisans/miners to produce gold in large quantities in Fakai, Bagudo and Shanga areas of the state.

“We have put N5 billion in the Bank of Industry for the small scale artisan/miners like those in Kebbi State. They will not only earn a living, but will be able to contribute to the state economy and that of the country,” he said.

The minister said he was impressed to see the local miners, who, by the dint of hard work, had been extracting gold in large quantities, just as they had organised themselves into groups.

“What we need to do is to enter into partnership with the state government and the artisan gold miners by giving them land to operate. Same for technical support. We also will encourage them to operate in safer ways,” he stated.

On his part, Governor Bagudu said he was happy the miners demonstrated that they could produce gold in ingenious ways. “We hope this investment will continue to produce lots of gold to boost the state and the country’s economy,” he said.

But while all these promises are still being made and millions of naira in gold are made by both the foreign and local miners, the people of Garin Auwal have nothing to show for the mineral resource endowed by God in their community. No school has been built, no health facility provided. Their environment is gradually being devalued.

Though gold glitters, life in Garin Auwal is coarse and dull. It lacks the glitter that the affluence of their environment commends.