By DAGGA TOLAR
While joining in mourning the death of 37 of us, who tragically suffocated to death in the cells of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Minna, Niger State, the government has come up with a swift response that has resulted in the arrest of NSCDC officers and the establishment of a probe panel to investigate the cause of the incident. We in the Movement for a Socialist Alternative (MSA) are, however, not sucked in by this public display of empathy by the government; it is sheer play to the gallery, when in reality it is the government, both past and present, that should be held accountable for this largely preventable and unwarranted tragedy, not even at the equally dangerous mining site but in detention in a government facility.
It is no longer news that some of our northern states mine and sell gold, tin, lithium, uranium, iron ore, and other rare earth elements in commercial quantities. According to a report, there are “44 mineral resources spread across more than 500 identified locations” in the northern part of the country. Why is it that the necessary legislation has not been put in place to bring these assets under state control, so that the whole country can benefit from this wealth and these resources? Why reserve them for a few bigwigs to keep lining their pockets?
Who are these bigwigs who employ these youths who are desperately in need of means of survival, condemning themselves to work in the appalling and unwholesome conditions in the mines? Are they untouchable? Why arrest the workers and not the bigwigs? Is it that they are fronts for members of the ruling class, and the arrests were carried out by overzealous NSCDC officers who want to demonstrate that they are working? These bigwigs are the real crooks, who are fleecing the lives of young people, offering them peanuts to endanger their well-being and health, with practically nothing to show for it. Indeed, for these 37 youths, their deaths are not unconnected to the torture their bodies had already gone through; possibly, they had not even had their meals for the day, and then they were arrested and condemned to a cell with little or no ventilation in a space that should be for more than two or, at most, four persons.
Anything short of nationalising the mines and bringing them under public management and democratic control means that we should just expect and wait for the next tragedy to occur. Nigerians must reject the sheer public display of concern by the government, with the instant bravado and arrest of NSCDC officers involved in the incident. However, we are not unaware that nearly all of the wings of the ruling class in the country are henchmen and women for agents of capital nationally and internationally, all tied and committed to further deregulation of the economy, and that only if the working masses struggle to bring to power a workers’ and poor farmers’ government will the mines and all other key sectors of the economy be nationalised. We must also not forget that these same mines are a constant factor in the insecurity challenges confronting the northern part of the country.
Again, we reject any attempt to make NSCDC officers pay for a tragedy for which the government should be held directly responsible, for not providing the needed funding, training, and facilities that will enable them to carry out their duties humanely. Can the government claim ignorance of the fact that arresting officers do not treat arrested individuals as humans? A process of dehumanisation commences immediately after any arrest. The same thing occurs in nearly all detention centres in the country. Nigerians who have not yet been tried and found guilty are cramped into spaces not fit for human habitation. We must ask what reforms the government implemented since the #EndSARS protest: practically nothing.
The President’s statement that “these individuals were suspected of illegal mining does not remove their right to life, dignity, and humane treatment” is an empty rant in the face of the conditions people who are arrested go through; for sure, these arresting officers are not expected to employ their poverty wages to provide themselves with the instruments and facilities with which to perform their duties.
We also question the need for paramilitary organisations, not when the police can be better equipped to carry out these functions and services, but instead of employing more police officers to match the policing needs of the country, ensuring that a living wage is paid and also granting the right to a police union so that they can legitimately agitate for improved working and living conditions.
End illegal mining. Bring all the mining sites under public ownership, with all the necessary facilities and welfare, working standards, and wages commensurate with the work miners do. Arrest the bigwigs who profit from the illegal mining and exporting of the resources from the mines. NSCDC officers must not be held accountable for the government’s failure to provide the necessary facilities that enable the humane delivery of services. Guarantee the right of officers, including the rank and file of the police and military, to form a union. Arrest and prosecute government officials whose negligence and dereliction of their responsibilities to citizens and civil servants led to this tragedy.
We also call for adequate compensation for all 37 who died and all those who were arrested, and freedom for those illegally detained in all government facilities without being charged in court.
•Tolar is General Secretary, MSA
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