This panoramic ensemble is a mining site in the ancient mining city of Udege Mbeki in Nasarawa Local Government of Nasarawa state. This Tin city is a minerals mining dump that rose to the pick of prominence in the early 1900 at the height of the minerals resources rape that characterized the European occupation of Nigeria
This panoramic ensemble is a mining site in the ancient mining city of Udege Mbeki in Nasarawa Local Government of Nasarawa state. This Tin city is a minerals mining dump that rose to the pick of prominence in the early 1900 at the height of the minerals resources rape that characterized the European occupation of Nigeria.
In maintaining the tradition of the whites where locations of interest to them are given political recognition, Udege attained an enviable feet, it was made a district in the 1913 same time as present Benue. While Benue went on to become a local Government and now state, Udege has remained without any notable political lift.
The whites gradually fizzled out in the early 80s and left in their wake a land so bastardized by land surface perforations, indelible scars of the mining activities that went on unchallenged for over a century. At a point, aside Jos, the next destination of choice if one hopes to find the right machinery for tin mining and after processing, is Udege Mbeki.
Today, as the picture clearly suggest, tin scavenging, the renewed incursion which began perhaps with the return of democracy has pitted the land against the teeming youth who have abandoned farming for the quick cash that illegal mining puts into their pockets. Not that it is the choice of the youth. Knowing my people, if government decides to give them legitimacy, I have no doubt whatsoever that they will accept the terms as long they are reasonable.
The Udege mining company of old is today run by some Asians whose clear disregard for the plight of their host community is without doubt annoying and discriminatory, considering what goes on in other communities in Nigeria hosting expatriate mineral resources explorers. For instance, what do they gross on a monthly basis and how much of that is returned back to Udege as corporate social responsibility? These among other questions need answers.
Millions are made week in week out by this mining company but like the old days, Udege has nothing to show for all her toils of mineral delivery. I doubt if Kayode Fayemi knows of a place like this. What will it take government to swoop into this place, create order and ensure that the land and the people are protected both physically and financially? Daily, we hear of mining concessions where locals are advised to pull together, register a cooperative and receive mining licences and subsidised equipment from government. Government gets its own back through guarded taxation that will be used in the long run to better the lot of the people of Udege and Nigeria as a whole.
As I write, it pains me to state that, this darling ancient town whose secondary school is an alma Mata to many prominent names from Nasarawa state has remained sidelined, almost wholly removed from its deserved position of progress. Successive governments of Nasarawa state have, as if in tacit complicity, abandoned this mineral resources location and that is foolhardy at best considering the position of Nasarawa as the state that generates the lowest IGR. Why say you are the home of solid minerals when daily, the minerals remain largely untapped? How do you generate income and create employment for the teeming youth of the state whose astronomical growth in the alter of the educated has continued to create ripples since the good government of Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu established the Nasarawa state University?
I hope this gets to the right authorities, our plea is for government to come to the aide of this historical enclave, before it is forever buried under the misadventures of uncontrolled mining activities and the continuous mineral rape been perpetrated by the Mining company (if one can call them that) in Udege.
Photo credit: Dawda Opula
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