By Omoyeni Ojeifo
The tragic deaths of 37 miners in Niger State have sparked fresh demands for accountability, with Dr. Sam Amadi calling for an independent judicial inquiry to uncover the truth and assign responsibility.
Speaking on Tuesday, the Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought argued that a routine administrative panel is insufficient.
To ensure justice, Amadi urged the National Assembly to convene a public hearing and ordered the exhumation of the victims’ bodies for proper autopsies.
“There should have been a judicial inquiry because the issue here is not just about how they died; it’s also about the illegal mining activity and the possible high-level criminal activity going on,” he said.
He questioned how the miners came to be detained and the circumstances in which they died, saying the allegations surrounding their treatment required closer scrutiny.
“Some Nigerian miners are linking, alleging, and some have become prisoners that how did these children or minors get arrested, and some of the survivors claim they are illegal miners. So how did they get arrested, and they die in this condition?”
Amadi urged lawmakers to investigate the wider criminality and regulatory failures allegedly affecting Nigeria’s mining sector, including the role of government agencies responsible for oversight.
“We expect that the National Assembly should conduct public hearings. This is time for the government to come down and convey national attention on the mining industry, the corruption and the criminality,”Amadi stated.
He specifically called for the bodies of the deceased to be exhumed and subjected to proper autopsies, saying this would help establish the circumstances of their deaths.
“We also call that the bodies should be exhumed for proper autopsy. It matters for the integrity of the case to be sure to rule out completely criminal complicity, and then focus on negligence.”
Amadi stressed that the investigation should extend beyond the immediate tragedy to the wider management of mining in Nigeria, including the allocation of mining sites, impact on communities and losses in government revenue.
“We need, therefore, for a real audit and policy audit of how mining is allocated in Nigeria, the conditions affecting communities, the loss of revenue, the flooding of natural resources, and now the seeming criminal dimension of mining.”
He also warned that illegal mining had grown into a serious criminal enterprise, requiring stronger government action to sanitise the sector.
“Today miners across Nigeria have become a high-tech criminal enterprise, and the Nigerian government is doing nothing to sanitise that sector,”he emphasized
Persecondnews correspondent reports that the Director further raised concerns about the treatment of vulnerable young people accused of crimes, arguing that government policies should address poverty and social abandonment rather than rely primarily on criminalisation.
“The argument for today is: do not overcriminalize poverty. Provide social services. Review and elevate all the various social programs.”
According to Amadi, the deaths should become a catalyst for broader reforms in detention, social protection and the mining industry, insisting that Nigerians deserve clarity over the incident.
“We now need to intervene with all the digital tools and all the improvement in public administration. We should have closure. We have processes. We have clarity on what happened,”he maintained.
PersecondNews reported that the 37 suspected illegal miners died in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Minna, Niger State, on September 17, 2026, after they were arrested during raids on suspected illegal mining sites.