The 37 Miners Who Entered Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps Custody Alive

 By the time the first bodies were discovered at the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps facility in Minna on Thursday morning, the argument about illegal mining had already become almost beside the point.

 Sixty-seven people had reportedly been packed into custody after raids around M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto in Niger State on September 15 and 16. Thirty-seven were dead. The NSCDC initially suggested that a disease outbreak might have caused the deaths. It later said the cause had not been established and would have to be determined medically. The Niger State governor, Mohammed Umaru Bago, said the authorities were also considering suffocation caused by overcrowding and possible exposure to hazardous substances.

 Then came the accounts from survivors.

 One survivor told said that 17 people were first locked into a small room, after which more detainees were brought in. He said they complained about the heat and the lack of space. Another allegation was that something was sprayed inside the cell and that the smell made breathing difficult. Those accounts are allegations, not established findings. They nevertheless explain why the question has moved beyond illegal mining to the conditions in which the Nigerian state kept people it had arrested. 

 There is a simple fact at the centre of all this. Whatever offence the detainees may have committed, they entered government custody alive.

 Thirty-seven died there. That is now the question the state has to answer.

 What happened, and when?…

The known chronology is short but troubling.

 The NSCDC says its officers carried out operations against suspected illegal mining in the Wushishi and Lukoto areas on September 15 and 16. The people arrested were taken into NSCDC custody in Minna. According to the Niger State government, 67 people were detained in a cell. In the early hours of September 17, 37 were found dead. The NSCDC initially referred to a possible disease outbreak, while later acknowledging that the cause had not been determined.  Reuters+1

 By September 18, protests had broken out in Minna. Police used tear gas and other force to disperse demonstrators. One protester was seen dead during the unrest. The state government imposed a curfew. President Bola Tinubu ordered an investigation and the Niger State NSCDC commandant was suspended. 

 On September 19, the Federal Government went further. Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji Ojo constituted a ten-member committee and suspended the officers directly connected with the arrests, detention, investigation and guarding of the detainees. The committee was specifically instructed to establish the identities of the dead, investigate their arrests and detention, determine the cause and circumstances of the deaths, establish responsibility, complicity, negligence and misconduct, and recommend action and compensation where appropriate. It was given two weeks. The government also directed that all relevant records and material evidence be preserved. 

 That last instruction deserves attention.

 Records do not become necessary because an investigation has been announced. They were necessary from the moment the arrests were made.

The law did not stop at the arrest…..

 Nigeria’s legal framework gives NSCDC significant enforcement powers. The NSCDC says its statutory foundation is the NSCDC Act 2003 and the 2007 amendment. Its stated powers include arrest, detention and investigation, alongside its wider civil defence and national asset protection responsibilities.  NSCDC

 But an arresting power is not an unlimited detention power.

 The Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 contains a series of protections around arrest and custody. Section 5 prohibits unnecessary restraint. Section 6 requires notification of the reason for arrest and the suspect’s rights. Section 8 requires humane treatment of an arrested suspect. Section 10 deals with the inventory of property. Section 11 provides for examination of an arrested suspect. Section 15 requires arrests to be recorded. The Act also provides mechanisms for dealing with unlawful or prolonged detention.  Federal Ministry of Justice

 Those provisions matter in Minna because the investigation is not simply about the medical cause of death. It must establish whether the custody itself complied with the law.

 Who recorded each arrest? Who authorised the detention? What offence was recorded against each detainee? How many people were actually in the cell?  What was the authorised capacity of that cell? Who was the officer responsible for the facility when the numbers increased? Were medical checks conducted? Were detainees examined when they complained of illness or difficulty breathing? Were relatives permitted to bring food or other necessities? Were any detainees under 18? Who was responsible for counting the detainees? Who first noticed that people were collapsing? And when that happened, how quickly was medical assistance requested?

 These are not questions that require an autopsy to ask.  They are questions about custody management.

The mining regulator has its own set of questions to answer…

 There is another side to this story, and it should not be lost simply because 37 people died in custody.

 Nigeria does have a serious illegal mining problem.

The Ministry of Solid Minerals Development’s Mines Inspectorate Department is responsible for general supervision of mining and quarrying operations and enforcement of compliance with the mining law and its regulations. Its stated functions include supervision of mine health and safety requirements, inspections and investigations into compliance with mineral titles and the law. 

 The Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 is also quite specific about accidents. Section 84 requires the holder of a mining lease or licence to report an accident involving death or serious injury as soon as possible to the nearest police station or the Mines Inspectorate Department. The Act provides for inquiries into mining accidents.  Mines and Steel Development

 The Mining Regulations 2011 go further on safety. Regulation 140 requires a mine manager to maintain records of accidents, dangerous occurrences and diseases and to prepare incident reports. It also requires immediate notification to the Mines Inspectorate of an outbreak of contagious disease at a mine or mine settlement. The regulations contain detailed requirements on ventilation and dangerous atmospheres. 

 So Nigeria is not short of rules. The harder question is whether the rules are being enforced before people die.

 The pattern was already there…

 The Minna deaths came only months after another mass death in Nigeria’s mining sector.

 On February 18, 2026, 37 people died at a mining site in Zurak, Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State, in what the Federal Government described as a gas poisoning incident. Twenty others were hospitalised. The site was operated by Solid Unit Mining Company Limited. In April, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development inaugurated a high-level committee to investigate the disaster and suspended the company from mining operations. 

 The government’s own description of the Zurak investigation is revealing. It said the inquiry was expected to examine not only the immediate cause but the underlying and root factors, with particular attention to regulatory compliance and safety standards. That is the right approach.

 Because Nigeria’s mining deaths rarely begin with the moment the ground gives way or the gas reaches a worker’s lungs.

 They usually begin earlier, with somebody operating where they should not be, somebody failing to inspect, somebody ignoring a warning, somebody lacking the equipment to detect danger, somebody knowing about a risky operation and doing nothing. Then the pit collapses.

 In April 2025, two people died after a rockslide at an illegal mining site in Farin Doki, Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State. Police said the victims had allegedly gone to the site at night for illegal mining before the rockslide. 

 In September 2025, at least 13 people died after a mine collapsed at Kadauri in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State. The Federal Government said 15 itinerant workers had been trapped and blamed heavy rainfall and unlawful mining activity for aggravating the collapse. Federal mines officers were deployed to the area. 

 And now, almost exactly a year later, another mining death story has emerged from Taraba. Five alleged illegal miners were reported dead after a pit collapsed in Mayokam village, Bali Local Government Area, although other reports put the number feared dead much higher. The conflicting figures themselves show how poor casualty accounting can be in remote mining areas. 

 The point is not that these incidents prove a single conspiracy or one continuous government failure.

The point is that they show a regulatory system repeatedly arriving after people are already dead.

 What did government know, and when?

 This may ultimately be the most important part of the Minna investigation.

 Government officials knew illegal mining was taking place in Niger State. That is why the NSCDC operation happened. They knew enough to conduct raids and make arrests They then knew that dozens of people had been taken into one detention facility.

 At some point, officials knew that people inside the facility were in distress. Exactly when they knew this, and what they did about it, is one of the facts investigators now need to establish. The government knew people had died by the morning of September 17.

 The first public explanation was a possible disease outbreak. Later statements were more cautious. By September 19, the Federal Government had suspended the officers involved and established an independent committee specifically to investigate responsibility, negligence and misconduct. 

 That sequence creates a legitimate evidentiary question. What evidence supported the initial disease theory? Was there a medical examination before that explanation was publicly offered? Were samples taken? Were toxicology tests ordered? Were photographs, CCTV recordings, duty logs, cell registers, medical records and communications preserved immediately? Were the detainees separated according to age, sex and medical condition? And why were 67 people apparently held together in the first place?

 The government now says evidence must be preserved. That is sensible. But the real test will be whether investigators can reconstruct the custody environment hour by hour.

 The buried bodies complicate everything…

 There is another problem that cannot be wished away.

It has been reported that the bodies were buried according to Islamic tradition shortly after the deaths. That potentially makes forensic examination more difficult.

 That does not make a forensic investigation impossible, but it raises the importance of whatever evidence existed before burial.

 The investigators should therefore be looking beyond autopsy findings.

 Hospital records matter. Blood and tissue samples, if any were taken, matter. Photographs, phone records, and witness accounts matter.

 The condition of the bodies before burial matters. Timeline, the identities of the dead matter, so does evidence of any chemical or other substance allegedly used inside the detention area.

 The survivor allegation that something was sprayed in the cell is particularly important precisely because it can be tested. If a substance was used, what was it? Who ordered it? Why was it used? Who supplied it? Was it a disinfectant, an insecticide, a riot control agent or something else? Was it used according to an approved procedure?

The investigation should not decide these questions by public relations. It should decide them through evidence.

 Illegal mining is still part of the story…

 None of this means the government should stop enforcing mining laws.

 Illegal mining has real consequences. It can cost government revenue, damage land and water, create dangerous working conditions and undermine legitimate operators. The Federal Government has also linked illegal mining to wider security concerns in parts of the country. Reuters reported that the government intends to continue its crackdown while insisting that enforcement must be lawful.

 But there is a difference between enforcement and regulation.

 If a miner has no lawful title, the state can prosecute or otherwise proceed according to law. If a mine is dangerous, the regulator can shut it down. If someone has committed an offence, the justice system can deal with that person. None of those powers removes the state’s responsibility for what happens after arrest.

 There is also a harder economic question. Why do people continue entering dangerous pits?

 Some are chasing gold or other minerals. Others are trying to make money in places where formal employment is scarce. Some may be working for financiers and middlemen who never enter the pit themselves. Some sites operate around formal titles, informal community arrangements or outright illegal activity.

 That is where the Ministry’s formalisation programme becomes important.

 A system that tells a poor miner to become compliant without making lawful participation reasonably accessible will struggle to bring that miner inside the regulatory system.

The answer cannot be arrests alone.

The real investigation is bigger than NSCDC

 NSCDC has questions to answer. So does the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, the Mines Inspectorate and the agencies responsible for criminal justice and detention oversight.

 The mining regulator needs to explain what it knew about the Wushishi and Lukoto operations, whether the sites had valid titles, whether previous inspections had taken place and whether enforcement information had been shared with the security agencies.

 NSCDC needs to explain the arrest operation, the number of detainees, the detention conditions, the staffing level, the medical response and the chain of command.

 The government needs to explain why a system capable of identifying and arresting suspected illegal miners apparently lacked the capacity to keep them safely in custody.

 And the independent committee needs to resist the familiar Nigerian temptation to produce a report that identifies several failures, recommends reforms and then disappears into a filing cabinet.

 The country has seen that movie before.

 The Zurak deaths showed what happens when mining safety breaks down. Shiroro showed the danger of informal operations. Zamfara showed the consequences of unstable pits and itinerant mining. Taraba is showing that the pattern has not disappeared. 

 Minna is different because the victims were no longer simply workers inside a dangerous mine. They were detainees. The state had them, and so that changes the legal and moral equation.

The government can argue, legitimately, that illegal mining must be confronted. It can point to the environmental damage, lost revenue and security implications. It can prosecute those responsible for illegal operations.

 But once the state takes a person into custody, it inherits a duty that cannot be outsourced to the circumstances that led to the arrest.

 The 37 deaths should therefore produce two investigations, not one.

 One must ask whether the mining was legal. The other must ask whether the custody was lawful. Neither question cancels the other.

 And until both are answered with evidence, not assumptions, the most important fact remains the simplest one.

 Thirty-seven people were arrested alive. They were found dead in government custody less than two days later.

 The Nigerian state now has to explain what happened in between.