Nigeria’s mining data exists online, but communities most affected cannot access it
For years, communities in Shiroro have depended on the “Onato” stream for drinking, cooking and other household needs.
For years, communities in Shiroro have depended on the “Onato” stream for drinking, cooking and other household needs. This was before mining started polluting the water. Residents say they cannot determine who is operating nearby mining sites or whether the operators are licensed, exposing wider concerns about access to Nigeria’s digital mining oversight systems.
The stream, once clear, now runs brown. A few metres away, excavators roar to life as artisanal miners claw deep into the earth. There are four mining sites in Farin Doki and Ajata Aboki, both in the Shiroro area, where residents relied on the Onato stream.
Locals told PREMIUM TIMES that two of the mines are managed by indigenous artisanal miners, while the remaining two are operated by companies they could not identify. Some residents alleged that one of the sites appeared to be linked to Chinese operators, although PREMIUM TIMES could not independently verify the company’s ownership.
“We don’t know the names of those companies,” a youth leader who pleaded anonymity for his safety said.
But he suspects that local authorities might have those details. “People like the district head may know their names since they are benefiting from them,” he said.
The youth leader, however, did not explain how the leaders were allegedly benefiting from the mining activities, and our reporter could not independently verify his claim.
Sadace Anguwa, a 46-year-old woman in Ajata Aboki, described the Onato stream as “the backbone of our daily life.”
“It has been 20 years since I married into this village, and we have relied on the stream as our main source of water,” she said. “We drink from it, cook with it and use it for our basic needs.”
But the stream is now threatened by gold mining activities, turning what was once a dependable resource into a source of fear.
“The stream has become contaminated and now poses a serious threat to our health and the well-being of the entire community,” she said, adding that health workers now warn against using the water.
“Whenever our children fall ill, and we take them to hospitals, medical personnel strongly warn us to stop giving them water from the stream,” she added.
In Nigeria’s mining communities, this uncertainty is common, an everyday reality shaped not just by excavation on the earth, but by the absence of accessible information about who is mining, under what authority, with what environmental safeguards and at what cost.
While government agencies maintain digital systems intended to support transparency and oversight in the mining sector, many affected communities remain unable to access or use them effectively.
At the centre of this system is the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO), which maintains a public, online register of mining licences. Alongside it is the Mines Environmental Compliance (MEC), tasked with monitoring environmental standards and enforcing compliance.
Together, these departments under the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development are meant to ensure that mining activities are regulated and accountable. But many mining communities are left in the dark.
However, experts say that although parts of Nigeria’s mining oversight system are digitised, they do not yet function as a fully accessible Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
The MCO’s portal is designed as an open database where anyone can track who holds a mining licence and where operations are taking place. The department represents a key pillar of transparency in Nigeria’s extractive sector.
The portal, otherwise known as the electronic Mining Cadastre system or eMC+, was launched on 01 November, 2022 to transform mineral title administration. It was developed in partnership with GAF AG, Germany.
In principle, this should allow citizens, journalists, investors and host communities to verify whether mining operators are licenced and legally recognised. However, experts say the systems remain difficult to navigate and largely inaccessible to locals in rural areas where mining is most active.
“Many rural communities sit on the wrong side of Nigeria’s digital divide,” said Felicia Dairo, a member of Nigerian Indigenous Women in Mining and Natural Resource Organisation (NIWIMNRO) and a project manager at Centre for Journalism and Innovation Development (CJID). She explained that the communities are located in areas with weak or no network coverage, where even basic connectivity is a challenge.
Ms Dairo said access to government platforms in such places is “almost non-existent,” compounded by low literacy levels, including digital literacy, and limited device ownership.
In some communities, only a handful of residents own smartphones, making engagement with an online system effectively impossible, she added.
Experts say publishing licensing records online is insufficient if affected communities cannot search the databases, interpret licence data, or verify whether operators comply with environmental obligations.
This gap poses unanswered questions at the community level: Who is mining here? Are they licensed? What are they allowed to do? Without clear answers, communities are left guessing whether operators are legal or illegal, and whether any standards are being followed.
Access to clear licensing data, Ms Dairo argues, could significantly change this dynamic.
“Locals do what they do because they don’t even understand the laws and regulations governing the sector,” she said, adding that accessible information paired with proper sensitisation would help communities to better distinguish between legal and illegal mining.
While the licensing system is hard for locals to access, environmental oversight is even more opaque.
The MEC is responsible for ensuring that mining operators comply with environmental regulations. They are expected to conduct inspections, identify violations, coordinate community development agreements and enforce penalties where necessary. Yet no publicly accessible platform shows this work in action.
There are no easily available records of inspections, no clear database of violations, and no transparent log of enforcement actions.
Even when people living near mining sites report degraded farmland, polluted water sources or abandoned pits, there is little publicly available information on whether those complaints were investigated or whether any enforcement action followed.
Where such a gap exists, the consequences can be far-reaching. Ms Dairo described the situation as one that encourages “anyhowness” in Nigeria’s mining industry, “which will result in illegality as we are currently experiencing.”
Many oversight systems in Nigeria are, in many ways, already digital. But by the core standards—openness, interoperability, inclusivity, and security—of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), they fall short of being truly public.
