Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago, has disclosed that 67 artisanal and suspected illegal miners were detained in a Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps cell before 37 of them died in custody.
Bago made the disclosure on Friday while addressing journalists in Minna, as investigations continued into the deaths of the miners.
The miners were reportedly arrested by NSCDC operatives during separate operations in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas of the state on September 15 and 16, 2026.
The governor said the exact cause of the deaths had yet to be established, noting that authorities were investigating possible suffocation caused by overcrowding as well as exposure to hazardous substances associated with mining activities.
“The first one is that the office of the Niger State Civil Defence arrested 67 artisans and illegal miners and put them in their cell. So probably they died of suffocation. Probably the second one is exposure to certain poisons or poisoning substances on the field,” Bago said.
He said medical, forensic and biological experts had been deployed to collect samples from the scene and conduct examinations that would assist the committee investigating the incident.
Bago stressed the need for the autopsies and other medical examinations to be expedited to establish the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
“It is very important to understand that responsible mining must be the way forward where miners will have to use protective gears and also a lot of advocacy by the ministry must be done and must be continuous where people don’t understand the danger and the consequences of mining,” he said.
The governor described the death of 37 people as significant, urging authorities to establish what happened without delay.
“Even at times of war, if you kill 37 people, is not a small number. So there’s need for us to expedite action in the autopsies that are being done, in the samples that are being taken at the scene and also by the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps on the actions of their men who made the arrest,” Bago said.
He added that experts had also been deployed to examine the possibility of radiological exposure at the mining site.
The NSCDC had initially attributed the deaths, which were discovered in the early hours of September 17, to a suspected disease outbreak.
The Corps later clarified that the actual cause of death had not been established, saying medical and laboratory examinations would determine the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
The NSCDC had also confirmed that scores of suspected illegal miners arrested around the M.I. Wushishi/Lukoto area were found dead in custody.
The bodies were subsequently taken for medical examination as investigations commenced.
Following the incident, the Federal Government suspended the Niger State NSCDC Commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, and ordered a full investigation into the deaths.
