By Dr Austin Maho
A recent article published by Farooq A. Kperogi in his syndicated weekly column, titled “How Chinese Miners Fuel Nigeria’s Terrorist Banditry”, raises an urgent question: What is the nexus between illegal mining and Nigeria’s security challenges?
It is a discussion Nigerians must have. However, going through the article, it quickly narrows into a familiar pattern: “Chinese miners fuel banditry”. The evidence cited does not support that causal leap. Worse, the framing obscures the real drivers of violence, ignores Chinese victims of the same crisis, and recycles a geopolitical cliche that paints Chinese investment as uniquely predatory. Nigerians deserve to know the truth, not create a foreign bogeyman to wish away a national crisis.
Blaming “Chinese miners” oversimplifies a complex crisis and risks xenophobic scapegoating of innocent foreigners.
1: Illegal mining is a symptom, not the disease. Banditry predates Chinese presence. Kperogi himself concedes that “illegal mining is not the sole driver of Nigeria’s insecurity.” That caveat should be the headline, not a footnote. Banditry in Zamfara exploded between 2011 and 2014, long before Chinese-linked companies became visible in the area. The 2019 Zamfara mining ban was imposed because bandit attacks were already rampant, not the other way around.
The roots are well documented: decades of state neglect, collapsed agricultural livelihoods, farmer-herder clashes exacerbated by climate stress, proliferation of small arms after Libya’s collapse, and the hollowing out of traditional conflict-resolution systems. In Niger State’s Shiroro LGA, communities were displaced by terrorists like Dogo Gide and ISWAP before any foreign company showed up. Mining did not create the terror. Terror created ungoverned space, and all kinds of actors, local and foreign criminals, rushed into the vacuum.
To say Chinese miners “fuel” banditry reverses cause and effect. As Engr. Adamu Garba Musa asked: “If bandits are disturbing people, how come the company is working successfully?” The answer is grim but obvious: companies survive by paying what villagers cannot – protection levies, extortion, coercion, shakedown or their investments go up in flames. This is not sponsorship. Conflating the two criminalises victims of coercion.
2: Chinese nationals are victims, not masterminds, of kidnapping and banditry. If Chinese-linked firms were financing bandits, why are Chinese citizens routinely kidnapped by those same bandits? The record is public:
-June 2022: Four Chinese workers abducted for ransom at a mining site in Shiroro, Niger State.
-January 2023: Two Chinese nationals kidnapped in Ogun State. One police officer killed during the attack.
-October 2023: Three Chinese expatriates taken in Osun State; millions allegedly paid for release.
-March 2024: A Chinese engineer abducted in Zamfara. Local police confirmed bandits demanded N100m.
August 2025: 2. Two Chinese miners killed in Kaduna when bandits attacked their site.
These are not isolated. The Chinese Embassy in Abuja has repeatedly issued security alerts and, in February 2026, called allegations of terror financing “completely baseless” while reaffirming “zero tolerance” policy toward its companies or citizens engaging in illegal mining abroad. It urged Chinese firms operating in Nigeria to strictly comply with Nigerian laws and regulations, and said the Chinese government supports legal enforcement by the Nigerian government against any individual or entity found violating those laws.
The statement also pushed back on narratives linking Chinese miners to banditry, noting that Chinese citizens have themselves been frequent victims of kidnapping and violent attacks at mining sites across Nigeria. The embassy called for objective, fact-based reporting rather than generalisations that stigmatise foreign investors. It reaffirmed China’s commitment to working with Nigerian authorities to promote lawful, orderly mining cooperation and to jointly safeguard security, adding that Beijing is willing to cooperate with Nigerian investigations and take action against any Chinese nationals proven to be involved in illegal activities.
No businessman kidnaps his own assets. The pattern is clear: Chinese firms, like Nigerian ones, operate in high-risk zones because minerals are there. They hire security, pay levies under duress, and sometimes lose staff. That makes them victims of state failure, not authors of it.
3: Narrowing it down to the “Chinese” label hides a Nigerian problem: elite complicity and regulatory failure. Every credible report Kperogi cites names the same prime mover: “politically connected Nigerians.” Dr. Maurice Ogbonnaya’s ISS work indicts “politically connected Nigerians”. The ENACT brief blames “Nigerians in high positions of authority”. The WikkiTimes investigation references licenses held by Nigerian companies, Eso Terra Investment Limited and Majelo Global Resources Limited.
In Nigeria’s mining sector, foreigners cannot hold titles directly. They partner with Nigerian license holders, who handle community relations, security, and politics. When WikkiTimes reports that “bandits were paid N3 million every week”, the question is: who negotiated that? Who knew the Dogo Gide faction’s account number? The fixers, facilitators, and profit-sharers are Nigerian. Chinese are mainly hired hands in the mines to provide their technical expertise and financing. Yet the headline becomes “Chinese Miners.” This is how structural corruption is laundered into ethnic outsourcing. We fire the cook and keep the menu.
4: “80 illegal” does not equal “80% Chinese”. The NEITI/ANEEJ report cited by Reuters says 80% of mining in the Northwest is illegal. It does not say 80% is Chinese. Artisanal and small-scale mining in Nigeria employs 500,000+ Nigerians, per the Ministry of Solid Minerals. They dig without licenses, sell to middlemen, and pay local chiefs. Chinese buyers are part of a long chain that includes Lebanese, Indian, Nigerian, and Togolese traders. Singling out one nationality distorts the narrative and leads to ethnic profiling.
Moreover, the same ministry Kperogi credits for reform has licensed Chinese firms that do operate legally. Examples abound: Segilola Gold in Osun, Ganfeng Lithium in Nasarawa, and others are publicly listed, pay taxes, royalties, and publish ESG reports. In February 2026, the ministry announced 388 new mineral buying centres to formalise trade. Many Chinese buyers have registered. The government’s own data shows a move toward compliance, not a conspiracy.
5: The geopolitical context: Who benefits when “China” is the villain? Kperogi’s piece lands in a crowded media ecosystem where “China in Africa” is shorthand for exploitation. Western outlets have run dozens of stories on Chinese illegal mining in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and DRC. Some are factual; many are thinly sourced. The pattern is to frame China as a unitary actor – “China” mines, “China” bribes, “China” funds terror – while Western firms are “companies” and Nigerian elites are “collaborators.”
That framing has costs. In 2023, a viral rumor that “Chinese miners were arming bandits” triggered attacks on Chinese workers in Zamfara. In 2024, the House of Reps had to debunk claims that Chinese firms were importing weapons. Narrative has body counts. Nigeria should not be a proxy in great-power competition. Our security analysis must be evidence-led, not geopolitics-led. If a Canadian or Australian firm paid bandits to access a site, we would call it what it is: corporate criminality under duress. We would not indict Canada.
6: What a serious policy response looks like – without xenophobia. Kperogi ends with six proposals. Most are sound. But they will fail if built on a faulty diagnosis. Here’s a refined version:
-Map the entire value chain, not just the foreign face. Publish beneficial owners, yes, including Nigerian PEPs. Name the local chiefs who collect surface rents, the DSS officers who escort minerals, and the customs agents who clear containers.
-Traceability must be nationality blind. Blockchain or paper, the standard should apply to every buyer: Chinese, Lebanese, Nigerian. The 388 buying centres are a start. Expand them.
-Prosecute the extorted and the extorter differently. A company that reports bandit levies to the NSA should be treated as a witness, not a sponsor. Create a safe harbour for firms that disclose payments under duress. That dries up terror financing faster than arrests.
-Secure mines the way we secure oil facilities. The reason bandits don’t tax oil fields is the Joint Task Force. The Mining Marshals arresting 350+ people is progress. Scale it, and embed military cover for legal sites.
-Diplomacy, not demagoguery. China has leverage over its nationals. In 2024, Beijing blacklisted 3 firms caught in Ghana’s galamsey. Nigeria should give the Chinese Embassy a docket of allegations and demand action. Public shaming without due process just drives illegality underground.
-Fix the livelihood crisis. Banditry pays because farming doesn’t. No amount of mining reform will work if 70% of Zamfara youth are jobless. Formalize artisanal miners into cooperatives, as Alake suggests. Give them equipment, not just arrests.
Nigeria’s minerals should be a blessing. Today they are a curse. But the curse is not Mandarin. It is impunity. It is the governor who takes a cut, the general who sells a license, the chief who rents his forest, and the bandit who taxes everyone.
Chinese firms that break the law should face the law. So should Nigerian firms. So should the officials who enable them. But to suggest that “Chinese miners fuel banditry” is to substitute a slogan for a strategy. It tells villagers in Shiroro that their enemy is a foreigner, not the governance void that left them defenceless.
Many Chinese nationals have been kidnapped, killed, and extorted in this crisis. They want what Nigerians want: roads without ambushes, sites without levies, contracts without bribes. An enabling environment for legal business is not a Chinese demand. It is a Nigerian right.
We should listen to Prof. Tade Aina and dig deeper. But let’s dig for the truth, not for a scapegoat. Banditry will end when the Nigerian state returns, with laws, with force, and with legitimacy. No embassy, East or West, can do that for us.
Dr Austin Maho is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and publisher of Daybreak Nigeria
