Group urges miners to involve host communities in mining activities

The Africa Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) has admonished miners in the country to carry relevant stakeholders in their host communities along to avoid crisis.

Campaigns and Research Officer of the centre, Omaojor Ogedoh, said in doing so, individuals and organisations undertaking mining activities should carry relevant stakeholders along in the business.

Ogedoh who made this known in Jalingo, Taraba State yesterday at the Policy Dialogue on the Project tagged: Strengthening Civic Engagement and Advocacy for Effective Natural Resource Governance in Nigeria.

He lamented that miners often ignored their host communities while carrying out their mining activities.

He said: “Most times, we are always overwhelmed by the resources we are given to mine, not minding the negative effects of the mining activities to the environment.

Noting that the çentre was presently carrying out pilot projects in Ekiti, Eboyi and Taraba states, he argued that formulating mining documents without carrying along the host communities was inimical to the success of the mining industries.

“We must be involved as community in developing that document, Ogedoh stressed.

Observing that Taraba State was endowed with abundant mineral resources, the miners, host communities and the government, he suggested, should collectively work together to create a conducive environment for mining to thrive in the country.

Speaking, Programme Director of the centre, Monday Osasah, said the conceptualisation of the project was one of the centre’s effort to ensure engagement between the communities and miners.

His words: “The policy dialogue is created to bring citizens and other stakeholders together to examine the content of public policies and implement them with a view to examining the implementation and impact of the policies.

“The objective of the policy dialogue is to provide platform for interaction and make suggestions towards resolving issues mitigating again.”

In a paper titled: Assessment and Community Development Agreement: The Challenges of Compliance of Mining Activities in Taraba State, a lecturer with the state College of Agriculture, Karshie Edward, urged the Community Development Agreement (CDA) to respect communities’ social structure such as the elders, women and youths groups during negotiation for effective compliance.

He said: “There is an urgent need to integrate the rural host communities in the relevant processes, believing that their involvement should be in the areas of impact identification, evaluation and prediction of impact mitigation measure.”