Solid Minerals Minister Dele Alake tells Kogi youths that illegal miners are local indigenes backed by community elders, disclosing 374 illegal sites identified, 743 arrests, and 5 convictions since March 2024.
Abuja — September 4, 2026
Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, has called on youths in Kogi State to persuade their elders, traditional rulers, and local government authorities to withdraw support for illegal miners operating in the state, warning that continued community backing is frustrating enforcement efforts and worsening environmental degradation.
Alake made the appeal while addressing members of Concerned Kogi Youths Against Environmental Degradation, who staged a protest at the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development in Abuja. He commended the group for joining the federal government's anti-illegal mining campaign and assured them the ministry is deploying technology and strengthening its Mining Marshals enforcement outfit to intensify the crackdown.
Alake said Kogi State has remained a particular focus of the ministry's enforcement efforts since the Mining Marshals' first-ever operation, which dislodged illegal miners from an area covered by Mining Licence 19325, belonging to North-South Extractive Industries in Yagba East Local Government Area.
He disclosed that investigations by several committees led by the ministry's permanent secretaries revealed that illegal miners operating in the state are not foreign nationals but local indigenes engaged in unlawful livelihoods with the backing of community elders, traditional rulers, and local government officials.
The minister explained that illegal mining is directly damaging licensed mining companies, since illegal operators neither pay for licences nor royalties on extracted minerals, yet profit from the same resources companies have paid to legally access.
"Their illegal activities are killing the mining companies," he said, warning that time was running out for illegal miners and their collaborators as enforcement technology and Mining Marshal deployment intensify.
Alake disclosed that between March 2024 and August 2026, the Mining Marshals identified 374 illegal mining sites nationwide, of which 108 have since been cleared. The enforcement effort has resulted in 743 arrests, with 165 cases involving 430 accused persons currently under prosecution and five convictions secured to date.
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