Illegal Mining As Fuel For Kidnapping In Nigeria, By Kazeem Akintunde
When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came into power three years ago, he shocked many Nigerians by appointing one of his trusted aides, Dele Alake, as Minister of Solid Minerals Development. Alake was a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Lagos state under Tinubu between 1999 and 2007. Alake’s background as a top Information Manager and former Newspaper Editor, many had concluded, would make him a round peg in a round hole as Head of the Information Ministry.
Few days after his appointment, Alake himself admitted that his deployment to the Solid Minerals sector shocked many Nigerians. Hear him: “My portfolio has been the upset of the entire cabinet because given my antecedents, exposure, and experience in the area of perception, information management, and the likes, most people had pigeonholed me for Information, so we decided to shock everybody. Now, if you all can sit down to analyse the global trend of economic development, you would note that the hydrocarbons, that is, the oil, is fading out, and the world is moving towards alternatives like gas, electric cars, and the rest. So, what is the next economic growth factor? It is solid minerals. Given the nature of this sector to our economic growth and dear to the heart of Mr President, it’s just very apt and proper for him to send me here, because he knows and trusts that I have a demonstrable sense of responsibility and courage to drive the agenda. That is why I am here. We are going to drive that agenda with the full cooperation of everyone,” he added.
Since he came on board, Alake’s transformation of the solid minerals sector is hinged on his 7-point agenda, through which he aims to reposition the mining sector as a core driver of economic diversification. Three years down the line, he has successfully boosted revenues and investment drive while transitioning the industry from resource extraction to local value addition.
By banning the export of raw solid minerals without local processing, Alake has attracted billions in foreign direct investment for new processing facilities and factories across the country. In addition, implementing digitisation and regulatory reforms such as a comprehensive review of mining licenses, which successfully doubled mining-related royalties to over ₦36.8 billion and increased overall licensing revenue has enabled him to champion the establishment of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG) to advocate for the continent’s control over its critical mineral value chain. Another area of success is the establishment and deployment of ‘Mining Marshals’ and mine police to crack down on illegal mining and secure mining sites.
However, in spite of these measures, this critical multi-billion dollar sector has continued to attracts both the good and the bad guys to many African countries, including Nigeria. Our resource-rich Africa has made the continent vulnerable to looters and colonialists who are determined to extract its minerals for themselves.
In their bid to get their hands on our God-given resources, they are ready to destabilize any area, zone, or region where they believe they can get our raw wealth. Africa holds nearly 30% of the world’s critical minerals reserves, including cobalt, lithium, manganese, and nickel. Yet much of the value created across mineral supply chains remains outside the continent.
The kidnapping incident in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State, where more than 40 school children and their teachers were kidnapped may not be unconnected to the activities of these illegal miners. Although the kidnappers behind the Oriiire Local Government Area kidnapping demanded the release of their criminal comrade from prison by the Federal government as one of the conditions given for the release of the of their victims, the major reason banditry and kidnapping has become a daily occurrence in the South West in general and Oyo State in particular, is the presence of precious solid minerals in the area.
In fact, we cannot talk about the insecurity in Oke-Ogun without addressing the elephant in the room: the booming, unregulated, and highly lucrative illegal mining sector. The rich soils of Oke-Ogun is heavily endowed with gemstone deposits, lithium, gold, and tantalite. Where there is unregulated mineral wealth in Africa, violence almost always follows as a tool of displacement and territorial control.
Illegal mining cartels – often backed by powerful internal collaborators and foreign financiers – have weaponised instability. Banditry and kidnapping serve a dual purpose for these syndicates. They terrorise local agrarian communities, forcing them off their ancestral lands, and create a climate of fear that keeps formal state regulatory eyes away from the mining pits. The cash generated from illicit mining directly funds the heavy logistics, intelligence gathering, and weaponry used by these bandits. The kidnapped school children and their teachers were simply victims of an intricate, bloody supply chain driven by greed.
To solve a crisis of this magnitude, we must look beyond the immediate shock of the abductions. We must boldly diagnose the remote causes that have turned Oke-Ogun and the borders of the Old Oyo National Park into a volatile playground for banditry.
The Old Oyo National Park is an invaluable ecological asset, covering over 2,500 square kilometres across several local governments in the state. Its sheer vastness has become its greatest security vulnerability. Due to a severe under-deployment of forest rangers and a lack of modern aerial surveillance, this federal reserve has slowly transformed into a ‘sovereignty gap’ – a dense, ungoverned space where criminal cartels can set up camps, move hostages, and operate completely outside the reach of the law. When an environment lacks consistent State presence, it naturally invites actors who thrive in the dark. The park is no longer just a sanctuary for wildlife; it has become a strategic tactical fortress for cross-border bandits moving through the porous borders connecting Nigeria with the Benin Republic.
It is no longer news that some foreign criminal elements and internal collaborators have been arrested inside the forest reserve in Ogun and Oyo States, where they were actively manufacturing dangerous drugs according to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
With the abducted school children and their teachers safely rescued by the security agencies, the Federal Ministry of Solid Minerals Development and the Oyo State Government must immediately freeze all mining activities in the affected areas of Oke-Ogun. Every artisanal and unregulated mining site must be occupied by the military. If access to the minerals is cut off, the logistics network of the bandits is starved of oxygen.
Additionally, traditional rulers and the local leadership of Oke-Ogun must be formally integrated into the State’s Security Council. Bandits do not drop from the sky; they buy food, hire bikes, and interact with local logistics suppliers. A heavily incentivised, anonymous whistleblowing system within the border communities will disrupt the bandits’ local supply lines.
The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, must also step up his game and ensure that many of the ungoverned spaces within the state are well manned by security agents, forest guards, agro rangers, as well as local vigilantes. Indigenes and residents of the state must be courageous enough to ask their Governor critical questions on what has become of the N7.76 billion drones purchased by his government since last year. We were told that two Diamond DA 42 MNG surveillance aircrafts, often described as high-capacity surveillance drones, were bought to combat kidnapping, illegal mining, and banditry in the state. They were said to have arrived in Nigeria around mid-May of 2026 and underwent reassembly by Chinese engineers at the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) hangar in Lagos. Makinde announced that the aircrafts were slated to become fully operational by the end of June, 2026, to support the Western Nigeria Security Network (Amotekun) and other conventional forces in the mission to rid the state of criminal elements that have taken over the forest reverse in the state. We are now in mid-July and those drones are still nowhere to be found.
The clearest proof that Alake is gradually transforming the sector shows in how much the solid mineral sector earned for the country since he assumed office. In 2023, this sector earned the Federation about N16bn. In 2024, the figure rose to N38bn. In 2025, it crossed N70bn. That is exponential growth of more than 337 per cent in three years from the same minerals and the same land, governed differently. The national accounts tell the same story in real terms, with the price effect stripped out. The sector grew 33.5 per cent in real terms in 2025, roughly nine times the overall economy’s 3.9 per cent real growth.
While the Federal Government has set an ambitious target for itself to ensure the growth of the sector, thereby contributing N30 trillion to the GDP by 2030 as reforms in the sector continue to attract fresh investments and significantly increase government revenue, this can only be realised if the cartels behind illegal mining are permanently put out of business. Once we deal with those cartels, there would be a significant reduction in banditry and kidnapping across the country.
See you next week.
