Adams Oshiomhole, Chairman of the State Committee on Interior and Senator for Edo North, has disclosed that a retired military general informed him that some powerful retired generals are using bandits to carry out illegal mining and steal solid mineral resources.
In an interview on Arise News Television’s Prime Time programme on Wednesday, Oshiomhole reiterated his earlier claims that retired military generals in Nigeria are behind illegal mining activities.
He explained that, according to the retired military general, bandits—previously known for kidnapping—are working for these influential generals. These bandits use helicopters to access illegal mining sites, drop weapons for civilians, and transport the stolen mineral assets.
The lawmaker had claimed that he believed and knew retired military generals behind illegal mining in the country.
However, Oshiomhole, a former national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress and former Governor of Edo State, during the interview, said he did not say that all retired military generals are behind illegal mining.
He, however, reaffirmed that he is sure that some retired military generals in the country are behind illegal mining and banditry in the country.
He said, “At no time did I say retired generals. I have many generals who are retired, who are suffering, who can’t change batteries in their cars. They retired as pure military officers. They never did any quarter-master job, they never had any political exposure, even in the days of military rule.
“It will be, as a matter of fact, not correct to suggest to anyone that all retired generals are involved in a particular crime. It is not sensible to say so. That will border on reckless, sweepy generalisation. That is not what I said.
“I said the problem is that some, and I still believe it to be so, and I know it to be so, that some retired generals are involved, and somehow, we are not deploying the same force as a nation that we deploy to protect our oil in Niger Delta.”
Narrating the revelation from the retired general, Oshiomhole said, “I said that a retired general who I had the honour of appointing and who graciously accepted to serve as a returning officer in a primary election when I was the national chairman of the APC, in his report back to me as the chairman, said, ‘Adams, you are worried about the primaries’, but he has seen that it is far more serious than that.
He said, “That the banditry that is evolving, or kidnapping as it then was, because there was no use of the word banditry, that those kidnappers in the first instance, are in the services of some very powerful, in his own word, retired generals.
“That they use choppers (helicopters); this was a retired general telling me, to the illegal sites, as they take mined gold and whatever it is that they are mining. They drop weapons to civilians who have been trained on the use of those weapons to provide protection for the illegal mining activities.
“He added that, of course, they offer that protection but some other times they divert these arms to terrorise innocent citizens or sometimes kidnapping.
“I then said to him, there is no way I can comprehend the story because I have no military training or security training.”
The lawmaker added, “I pleaded with him to do a summary of a maximum of three pages that I will submit as the chairman of the ruling party at that time, to the President who coincidentally is a retired general before becoming the President of the country, so he will understand the issues clearer.
“I advised him to put his phone number so that the President can call him if he so wishes and he can give him (President) this detailed dimension.
“He warned me that if that issue was not checkmated, what is happening in the Northeast will be a child’s play.”
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