Sand Miners Count Losses As Onitsha South LG Council Destroys Beaches, Seals Businesses

Sand miners in Onitsha, Anambra state are still counting their losses after their buildings and mining equipment were demolished by Onitsha South Local Government authorities on alleged state government orders, just two months ago.

In February of this year, the Onitsha South council authorities demolished the miners’ installation, dredging equipment, and sealed their mining activities along Niger Street, Ose Ekwodu market, and other parts of the River Niger banks, claiming that the buildings and equipment were a nuisance and defaced the topography of Onitsha as a commercial city.

However, at a stakeholders meeting between the Miners and the National Inland Water Ways Authority, NIWA, the sand miners, represented by the Onitsha Sand Miners Association, stated that the demolition exercise had left them deeply devastated.

Chief Chris Mbaegbu, President of the association, told reporters shortly after their meeting with NIWA that during the demolition exercise, more than ten crafts and sand dredgers worth N30 million each were destroyed, while buildings worth billions of naira were pulled down and looted by agents of local government officials selling their dredging businesses.

He lamented that these demolitions were carried out in violation of an existing interlocutory court injunction prohibiting local government officials from carrying out the demolition exercise.

Mbaegbu went on to say that, to make matters worse, the actions of local government officials have resulted in the unemployment of over 2000 people in the sand mining industry due to the multiplier effect.

He therefore urged Governor Chukwuma Soludo to intervene and restore them back to business because the miners pay revenue to both the state government, NIWA, and the federal ministry of mines.

Speaking to reporters, NIWA Area Manager for Onitsha Area Office, Suleiman Athanasius Nicholas, said he convened the stakeholders meeting after learning on social media that NIWA had sold the land to some of the sand miners.

Suleiman insisted that the meeting was also held to debunk the allegation that NIWA sold the River bank to sand miners, noting that the miners are tenants of those who purchased the lands from the original land owners.

“Lake Petroleum and Ugofoam, who acquired lands from Onitsha people many years ago, are landords to sand miners who may have rented individual portions of the lands from the various landlords and then apply to NIWA for certification. If their application is granted, they would commence mining operations and pay revenues to both NIWA and other

He lamented that 75 percent of all revenues generated by NIWA from all business activities on the country’s river banks were part of the federal allocation, which was shared monthly between the federal, state, and local governments, and questioned why the local government should interfere in sand miners’ businesses.

He therefore urged Governor Soludo to consider the huge losses being incurred by both the miners, NIWA, the state and federal governments in closing down business activities of sand miners and reopen them for business, particularly in consideration of the fact that the river banks belong to NIWA territory.

Also speaking, two other members of the sand miners association who identified themselves as tenants to Lake Petroleum Limited, Chidi Iheme and Uche Okafor noted that legitimate business activities of sand miners spanned across Nsugbe, Otuocha, and Atani units, adding, “we have the NIWA permit to carry out mining businesses at the river bank, just like our counterparts in Delta, Kogi, Rivers and other states that have riverrine areas.

Iheme and Okafor disclosed that the Onitsha South Local Government authorites may have been infuriated by the refusal of sand miners to be paying them extra revenue, apart from the ones they are already paying to NIWA, the state government and the federal ministry of mines.

Insisting that they never granted any interview to social media operators to the effect that they bought the land from NIWA with huge amount of money as they were errorneously quoted by the social media, they pleaded with Soludo to intervene and reopen their mining businesses at the river bank in the interest of peace and tranquility.

Reacting to the development, Secretary to Onitsha South Local Government council, Paul Onuachalla told newsmen on phone that NIWA over stepped it’s bounds and abused it’s right of way as contained in it’s establishment act by going out of it’s way to build parks, markets and warehouses for rents and for the purposes of collecting revenues from the traders which is under the state and local government acts.

Onuacualla who denied committing contempt of court by ignoring an interlocutory injunction restraining the local government from carrying out the demolition exercise, as alleged by the sand miners said the exercise was already completed before the arrival of the court order.

He recalled that the local government had warned tipper drivers not to overload their vehicles with sand because sand usually falls out and damages the roads, but the drivers boasted that they would continue to overload their vehicles.