Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s reaction to a viral video of teenage miner Yusuf Aliyu has renewed debate over child labour, extreme poverty and the Federal Government’s approach to illegal mining in Nigeria.
In the video, Aliyu reportedly speaks with unusual confidence and clarity about working at a gold-mining site in Niger State.
His account has drawn public attention to the economic pressures forcing children into dangerous mining work instead of keeping them in school.
Atiku said the teenager’s intelligence and promise should be developed in a classroom, not at a mining site.
He pledged to support Aliyu’s education and urged that any contact with the boy be handled through his family and appropriate child-protection channels to protect him from possible intimidation or retaliation.
“A child with such intelligence, clarity and confidence should be in a classroom building his future—not struggling for survival,” Atiku said in a post on X.
Aliyu reportedly told News Central Television that young people at the site worked to support their families and pay school fees.
He said their parents were poor and that mining had become a means of survival.
His account illustrates the difficult reality in many mineral-producing communities, where families living near deposits of gold and other resources remain without adequate schools, jobs and basic social services.
For such households, artisanal mining may be viewed less as a choice than as an immediate source of income.
However, the work exposes children to serious risks, including mine collapses, injuries, toxic substances, dust, exhaustion and exploitation.
It can also keep them out of school and entrench the cycle of poverty that pushed them into mining in the first place.
The debate has intensified following the deaths of 37 suspected illegal miners who were detained after security operations in Niger State.
The men were reportedly arrested in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas on September 15 and 16 during operations by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.
The NSCDC initially linked the deaths to a suspected disease outbreak. Survivors, however, alleged that overcrowding, heat and poor ventilation contributed to the deaths.
One survivor, Dauda Shehu, told the Associated Press that about 65 detainees were held in a poorly ventilated cell and struggled to breathe.
The allegations have not been conclusively proven. The bodies were sent for medical examination, while the police, the Niger State Government and a Federal Government-appointed independent committee began separate investigations. The state government also declared three days of mourning.
Against this background, Atiku criticised the government’s enforcement-based response to artisanal mining.
He argued that authorities have failed to provide poor mining communities with viable alternatives, formalisation opportunities and access to education.
He specifically questioned the status of the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative, or PAGMI, established under former President Muhammadu Buhari to register, train and integrate artisanal miners into the formal economy.
Niger State was among the states identified for intervention under the programme.
Atiku said the government should explain what became of PAGMI in the state and why communities located around valuable mineral deposits remain trapped in poverty.
“How can a community sitting upon gold remain so poor that it cannot educate its children?” he asked.
The former vice-president’s comments also amounted to a political attack on President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He accused the government of treating vulnerable miners primarily as offenders rather than as citizens in need of regulation, protection and economic support.
The government, however, maintains that illegal mining poses security, environmental and economic risks and requires enforcement.
Unregulated mining can damage farmland and waterways, expose workers to unsafe conditions and deprive the state of revenue.
Authorities are therefore expected to enforce mining laws and prevent children from working at hazardous sites.
The central concern is whether enforcement operations are being matched with meaningful alternatives.
Arrests and raids may remove miners from a site temporarily, but they do not address the poverty, unemployment and lack of schooling that draw children and adults back to mining.
The deaths in custody have further raised questions about the treatment of mining suspects, the duty of care owed to detainees and the level of accountability within security agencies.
The outcome of the ongoing investigations will be crucial in determining whether negligence, overcrowding, disease or other factors caused the deaths.
Aliyu’s story has therefore become larger than one child or one mining community. It has exposed the contradiction of a country where mineral wealth exists alongside hunger, school exclusion and insecure livelihoods.
For child-protection advocates, the immediate priorities are to secure Aliyu’s safety, return him to education and ensure that children are removed from hazardous mining work without depriving their families of support.
For the government, the challenge is to combine lawful regulation with formalisation, social protection, schools and alternative sources of income.
Until that happens, Nigeria’s mineral-rich communities may continue to produce wealth while their children pay the price in lost education, dangerous labour and diminished prospects.
