MINNA, Nigeria – Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, GCON, has donated ₦20 million to the families of the 37 suspected artisanal miners who died under controversial circumstances while held in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Minna, Niger State, political and humanitarian correspondents monitored on Thursday, September 24, 2026.
The humanitarian intervention followed a solemn condolence visit to the capital of the mineral-rich North-Central state, where the opposition standard-bearer met with bereaved relatives and surviving victims after paying homage at the palace of the Emir of Minna, Alhaji Dr. Umar Farouk Bahago.
Okay News reports that the 37 detainees, comprising teenagers and young men, died on September 17, 2026, days after they were rounded up by NSCDC operatives during joint enforcement operations targeting unregulated artisanal mining across the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto mining corridors.
The fatalities have triggered widespread public outcry, prompting the Federal Government through the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to suspend 20 senior NSCDC officers—including the Niger State Commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye—while inaugurating a 10-member independent investigative panel, alongside a parallel nine-member judicial commission of inquiry instituted by Niger State Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago.
Speaking in Minna during an interactive session with the affected families, Atiku described the custodial deaths as a national tragedy that demands unvarnished truth, transparent accountability, and swift criminal prosecution of culpable state agents.
In an official statement released by the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to the former Vice President, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku recounted the harrowing testimony provided by an injured survivor who endured the detention ordeal.
“It was a gory tale listening to one of the survivors,” Atiku said. “He told us that more than 68 of them were crammed into one small detention facility and that conditions became so desperate that they had to drink one another’s urine just to stay hydrated. No Nigerian should ever be subjected to such indignity in the custody of his own government. These were human beings in the care of the state. Whatever accusations may have been made against them, they were entitled to their lives, their dignity and the protection of the law.”
The ADC presidential flagbearer asserted that the tragedy exposed the broader socio-economic pressures pushing millions of vulnerable Nigerian youths into dangerous, unregulated informal labor, contending that national economic policies must be evaluated based on the living conditions of ordinary citizens.
“Thirty-seven young Nigerians entered the custody of the state alive and did not return alive to their families,” Atiku declared. “That tragedy demands truth, justice and accountability. Economic reform must ultimately be measured by what it does to the lives of ordinary people. If life becomes progressively more difficult for families, workers and young people, then government has a responsibility to reconsider the choices producing those outcomes.”
Addressing national economic questions during the engagement, the former Vice President reiterated his campaign blueprint advocating for a targeted production subsidy framework for domestic petroleum refiners, arguing that supporting local refining will substantially crash retail petrol prices and protect consumer disposable incomes without reverting to fraudulent import subsidies.
Atiku maintained that the purpose of governance is to enhance human well-being, pledging that his proposed administration will create structured industrial opportunities to integrate informal miners into formal, safe cooperatives rather than criminalizing citizens struggling for survival under severe economic hardship.
