CSOs Demand Protection of Host Communities Against Impact of Lithium Mining
By Ekemini Simon
A coalition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Africa have demanded protection of host communities against the negative impact of Lithium extraction taking place in Nigeria among other African countries.
The organizations note that their demand is predicated on the fact that there is absence of government oversight functions in the mining sector, especially in Nasarawa, Cross River, Kogi, Ekiti, Kwara and Edo states, where Lithium has been discovered in commercial quantities.
The CSOs who made their call known on Wednesday during a Webinar titled: Voices From Mining Communities: Exploring the Complexities of Lithium Mining in the Just Transition Discourse, organized by the Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF), Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), Global Alliance for Incinerators Alternative (GAIA), Africa Coal Network (ACN) and the Centre for Natural Resources Governance (CNRG) in Zimbabwe.
The group said if urgent action is not taken, the plight of the host communities where lithium extraction is taking place will be far worse than the Niger Delta suffering from pollution and land grabbing due to hydrocarbon extraction.
In his welcome address, the Executive Director of Community Development Advocacy Foundation
(CODAF), Richard Benin, said the new trend observed is that illegal miners and their foreign counterparts go about mining even beyond designated locations even as regulatory agencies among other relevant authorities give little or no attention.
He said polluters have merely changed their approach to environmental pollution, explaining that the activities of mining corporations have heightened the environmental and socio-economic challenges of host communities.
On his part, a member of the Global Advisory Hub of GAIA and Co-Founder of CODAF, Ubrei-Joe Maimoni, who spoke on The True Essence of a Just Transition, said that although minerals like lithium, cobalt among others are used for renewable energy, mining companies and the government must uphold indigenous rights and communities consent, prioritize circular economy solutions, provide stringent regulations and accountability, ensure equitable access to clean energy and robust environmental protection for host communities.
He added “Mining for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and copper needed for renewable technologies often occurs on Indigenous lands and in biodiversity hotspots. It is essential to uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, including their right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) as per the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”.
Also speaking, Philip Jakpor, the Executive Director, Renevlyn Development Initiative, said that there are proven cases of illegal mining activities going on in Nigeria, referencing four Chinese nationals who were arrested in Nasarawa State for illegal mining of lithium a few weeks ago.
Jakpor decried the fact that host communities are often than not excluded in negotiations between government and the miners leading to ecocide, land grabbing, child labour among other vices.
” My organization has visited one of the communities where lithium and gold are mined in that state and can confidently tell you that local community people are excluded in the engagements between the government and the miners and the environment is a crime scene.
“There are also some unsavory developments also in that community – a growing number of kids are recruited to mine and the girls are becoming sex slaves for the miners.
“In every community and around every community where lithium is mined in Nigeria there are Chinese companies and there is insecurity. Deliberately created insecurity in the mining communities allows the miners to get away with their environmental and other crimes.
“The requisite monitoring and oversight are largely missing. And let’s not forget that lithium is driving the renewable energy vision of the world. A metric ton of lithium in the international market is about $100,000 per metric ton, up from about $30,000 a year ago. The largest lithium importers are China, Japan, South Korea and the United States.
“The Chinese are ahead in the race to grab every lithium mining community in Africa and they respect neither human rights nor environmental sustainability. Rocks are blasted indiscriminately, wastes are discarded indiscriminately, and child labor issues are being documented in their mining sites.
“These incidents in lithium mining communities are reminiscent of oil extraction in the Niger Delta where issues of environmental sustainability are rife and the locals are left out of the governance of what ideally are resources from their own environment and should benefit them. Ogoniland, in Rivers State is a clear example of the oil curse”.
In his presentation, Mr. Tobias Lengs Dapam, RDI board member, also gave a grim description of the situation in Nasarawa saying the activities of miners in one of the remote villages have resulted in increased crime rate, stressing that a lot of young girls have dropped out of school, while younger school age boys are being lured into dangerous mining activities.
Also, in his presentation, Farai Maguwu, the Executive Director, Centre for Natural Resources Governance in Zimbabwe, said the Chinese are dominant in trade in Southern Africa.
He pointed out that the operators are not only grabbing the lands but also grabbing water, as they continue to drill boreholes for processing of lithium.
Maguwu described the activities of the miners as a subtle form of colonialism since they collude with few local politicians and powerful people to intimidate and mislead the villagers, grab their lands and drill boreholes to the detriment of the environment.
Kenza Elazkem, North Africa Outreach Coordinator, GAIA Africa said that beyond the issues of poor regulations in Africa, the critical minerals like lithium are only critical to the Global North which will rather extract them from Global South where regulations are weak.
She said that the energy transition model currently advanced by the Global North will push about 3 million Electric Vehicles batteries to Africa by 2050 including batteries that will cause public health hazards in Africa.
Elazkem explained that batteries produced for the Global South are of not of the same quality like those of the Global North despite the minerals used in producing it come from the Global South.
She said due to the imbalance and injustice GAIA is promoting campaigns to refuse products designed for wastes and reduce use of critical minerals among others.