Artisanal Gold Mining in Nigeria: The Licence, the Law and the Mercury

This article does not contain a map, a list of mining districts, or directions to anywhere. That is a deliberate choice and the first thing to say plainly. Artisanal gold mining in Nigeria is an activity that is licensed under federal law, that carries criminal liability when it is carried on without a title, and that exposes the people doing it to mercury. Publishing routes to sites would be publishing help with the part that gets people prosecuted and poisoned. What follows is the law, the licensing authority, and the published health evidence.

Why this article has no map and no site list

The question people arrive with is usually where is it happening. We are not answering that, and no responsible source should. Mining or exploring for minerals outside the terms of the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007 is an offence under that Act, and the Act also makes removing or disposing of minerals contrary to its provisions an offence. A location guide is therefore a guide to an offence, and it is also a guide towards mercury exposure in communities that did not ask to be written about. If a guide offers you states, villages, driving times or riverbeds, treat that as a signal about the guide rather than information about Nigeria.

What the law requires, and who may hold a lease

Start from where ownership sits. Under section 1(1) of the Act, the entire property in and control of all mineral resources in, under or upon any land in Nigeria is vested in the Government of the Federation. Section 2(1) then provides that no person shall search for or exploit mineral resources in Nigeria except as the Act provides, and section 46(2) states that a person who does so without the requisite mineral title or authority shall be guilty of an offence.

Section 46(1) sets out six forms of mineral title: a Reconnaissance Permit, an Exploration Licence, a Small Scale Mining Lease, a Mining Lease, a Quarry Lease and a Water Use Permit. The office that administers them is the Mining Cadastre Office, established in 2007 under section 5(1) of the Act, at No. 37 Lobito Crescent, Wuse II, Abuja, telephone +2348164101937.

Its published answers say a Small Scale Mining Lease may be held by a citizen of Nigeria with legal capacity who has not been convicted of a criminal offence, by a body corporate incorporated under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, by a mining co-operative, or by the holder of an exploration licence over the same area. The area is capped: the Cadastre states a maximum of not more than 3km2, that is 15CU. Note also how the Act defines the word in the title of this piece. Under section 164, artisanal mining means mining operations limited to non-mechanised methods of reconnaissance, exploration, extraction and processing within a Small Scale Mining Lease Area. In the Act's own vocabulary, artisanal mining is something that happens inside a lease, not instead of one.

What mining without a title carries under the Act

Section 131 makes it an offence to conduct exploration, mine minerals or carry out quarrying operations otherwise than in accordance with the provisions of the Act, and separately to remove, possess or dispose of any mineral contrary to the Act.

The penalties printed in the Act are heavy:

• Section 133: a mineral titleholder guilty of a section 131 offence is liable to have the licence revoked and, on conviction at the first instance, to a fine not less than N20,000,000 and imprisonment of not less than five years. Where the offence is a continuing one, a further fine of N20,000 applies in respect of each day it continues.
• Section 134(c): engaging in the business of milling, leaching, sampling, concentrating, reducing, assaying, transporting or dealing in ores, metals or minerals contrary to the Act carries a fine of not less than N500,000 or imprisonment not exceeding 2 years, or both.
• Section 146: any mineral won illegally may be seized, and on conviction it may be forfeited to the Federal Government.

One honest gap in that, which we are not going to paper over. Section 133 as printed is addressed to a mineral titleholder who is guilty of an offence under section 131. It does not state the penalty for a person who holds no title at all. Section 131 still makes the conduct an offence and section 46(2) still makes it an offence to mine without the requisite title, but the specific sentence attaching to an unlicensed person is not spelled out in that section. If your exposure to this question is anything other than academic, that is a question for a Nigerian lawyer, not for a guide. These naira figures are the amounts as printed in the 2007 Act; we have not found a published revaluation of them and we are not going to invent one.

Mercury: what the World Health Organization publishes

The health risk is not a side note, it is the main one. The WHO's fact sheet on mercury and health states that mercury use in artisanal and small-scale gold mining is particularly hazardous and that health effects on vulnerable populations are significant. On exposure routes it says that human exposure occurs mainly through inhalation of elemental mercury vapours and through consumption of contaminated fish and shellfish, which is how a mining practice reaches people who never went near a mine.

On effects, the same fact sheet records that Kidney effects have been reported, ranging from increased protein in the urine to kidney failure, and lists neurological symptoms: Symptoms include tremors, insomnia, memory loss, neuromuscular effects, headaches and cognitive and motor dysfunction. It also states that Exposure of the fetus to methylmercury poses danger to the unborn child. WHO's Regional Office for Africa, in a statement dated 6 November 2018, put the occupational version more bluntly: Exposure to elemental mercury can cause life-long disability, kidney failure and speech, sight and cognitive impairment, adding that women, pregnant women and children are at particular risk. All read on 24 October 2026.

Why the sector is being formalized

Nigeria's own ministries describe the sector as the informal majority rather than a fringe. The Federal Ministry of Environment, in an item dated 18 July 2017, stated that Nigeria does not have a full-scale gold mining sector but that artisanal and small-scale miners carry out majority of the gold mining activities in the country. It inaugurated a National Steering Group for a National Action Plan on mercury use in the sector, which is an obligation under the Minamata Convention on Mercury for a party whose artisanal gold mining is more than insignificant.

On the minerals side, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development runs an Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Department, created during the mining sector reform in 2006, whose published objectives include facilitating the formalization of the ASM subsector and whose functions include organizing miners into manageable, registerable and legally identifiable groups of Mining Cooperatives and registering private mineral buying centers. Its project list includes one titled Enhancing Formalization and Mercury-Free Gold in Nigeria. The direction of travel is a matter of public record: the state's stated aim is to bring this activity inside a licence and out of mercury.

What we could not source, and will not invent

Several figures circulate about this sector and none of them survived checking:

• How many people work in it. We found no reliable published count for Nigeria, so this article gives none. A figure for the number of people in a community or an occupation is exactly the kind of number that gets repeated until it looks official.
• Which states are active, and how active. Not published in a form we could verify, and not something we would print even if it were.
• What the sector contributes to the economy. No sourced figure, so no figure.
• Licence and renewal fees. Amounts appear in third-party summaries and in documents we could not confirm as current. Get them from the Cadastre's own portal.

What expats should know

• Minerals belong to the Federation under section 1(1), not to the landholder and not to whoever digs them up.
• Mining without the requisite title is an offence under section 46(2), and the conduct is an offence under section 131.
• The printed first-instance penalty is a fine not less than N20,000,000 and imprisonment of not less than five years, plus N20,000 for each day a continuing offence continues.
• Trading in ore without authority is separately an offence under section 134(c), and illegally won minerals can be seized and forfeited under section 146.
• Artisanal mining is defined as happening inside a Small Scale Mining Lease Area, not outside the licensing system.
• A lease is capped at 3km2, that is 15CU, and the Mining Cadastre Office is where applications go.
• Mercury exposure causes kidney and neurological harm and reaches non-miners through contaminated fish and shellfish, per WHO.
• Do not use a location guide. If a page gives you sites, it is helping you into the two risks this whole article is about.

Where to check

The statutory provisions are from the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007. Licensing, eligibility and the area cap are from the Mining Cadastre Office's published answers, and the formalization programme from the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining Department of the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. The health evidence is WHO's fact sheet on mercury and health and its Regional Office for Africa statement of 6 November 2018. The sector's standing and the National Action Plan are from the Federal Ministry of Environment, 18 July 2017. All read on 24 October 2026. If you have a question this article refuses to answer, the Mining Cadastre Office and the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development are the authorities to put it to.

AI-Generated Content: This article was created with AI assistance and may contain inaccuracies. Please verify important information with official sources.