The Commander of the Mining Marshals, Assistant Commandant of Corps John Onoja Attah, has distanced the specialized NSCDC unit from a September 16 operation at the M.I. Wushishi Housing Estate in Minna, Niger State, which resulted in miners’ deaths. He clarified that the suspended Niger State Commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, lacked the authority to deploy operatives from the unit.
Onoja Attah, in a statement issued by his office at the NSCDC National Headquarters in Abuja, described the claim attributed to Aniviye in a publication on October 16, 2026, as false and misleading, insisting that no Mining Marshals personnel participated in the operation now under investigation by the Justice Mohammed Mohammed Commission of Inquiry.
The suspended commandant was quoted as saying that he visited the mining site on September 15 before deploying Mining Marshals to the area.
But Attah dismissed the assertion, arguing that it misrepresented the command structure and operational jurisdiction of the specialised unit.
“No Mining Marshals operative is attached to the Niger State Command or to any State Command of the Corps for that matter,” he stated, stressing that the unit operates exclusively from the National Headquarters under the direct command, control and operational directives of the Commandant-General, in collaboration with the ministry of Solid Minerals Development.
He added that a state commandant had no authority to deploy Mining Marshals for any operation.
“Our operational records confirm that at no time were Mining Marshals personnel deployed or involved in the said operation,” Onoja Attah said, warning against attempts to associate the unit with the custodial deaths currently being investigated.
The commander also defended the operational record of the Mining Marshals, describing its enforcement activities under the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act, 2007, as professional, civil and guided by the law.
According to him, the unit has maintained strict adherence to its rules of engagement since its establishment, with no record of human rights violations in its operations across the country and no pending Fundamental Human Rights Enforcement suit against it in any Nigerian court.
The Mining Marshals, he said, remained committed to sanitising Nigeria’s solid minerals sector and would not allow what he described as erroneous publications to distract it from its statutory responsibilities.
What You Should Know
This development sheds light on an internal command dispute within the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) following a fatal incident during a mining enforcement operation in Niger State.
- Positive Impact: Clarifying operational chains of command helps maintain institutional accountability and ensures that unauthorized actions by individuals are properly investigated without tarnishing specialized units.
- Potential Concerns: Discrepancies within security leadership can undermine public trust and complicate ongoing judicial inquiries into tragic events like the deaths under investigation.
