Abuja – The Global Rights Nigeria, an international organisation, has advised the Federal Government to clean up Shikira community in Niger state to prevent further death of children from lead poisoning.
Abiodun Baiyewu, the Country Director of the organisation, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja that more children would be affected if urgent remediation was not carried out.
Environmental remediation deals with the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment, or surface water.
According to Baiyewu, the government is yet to fully address the incident that occurred in 2015 in Shikira, a remote community in Rafi Local Government Area where 28 children reportedly died of lead poisoning and 65 others became critically ill.
She said new cases of sickness had been recorded, adding that government only visited the community but failed to live up to its obligation of protecting the community.
“The 65 children with critical situations were tested, but there are also other affected children that were not tested and as long as the community is not cleaned up, more children will die, even after one year.
“While we applaud the recent visit by the Minister of Environment, Mrs Amina Mohammed to the community and her declaration of the situation as a national disaster, we are yet to see concrete implementation of the cleanup plan.’’
She urged government to immediately set up a medical centre at Shikira, Rafi for quick response in case of eergencies.
She also urged government to regulate mining activities and promote the development of organised mining cooperatives in Niger.
The country director called on the government to regulate the use of water sources for gold processing.
Baiyewu also spoke of the need for government to educate mining communities on safer mining practices and regulations.
She added that it was important to provide boreholes to ensure supply of portable water, build access road in affected communities, as well as devise alternative livelihoods for indigenes.
She urged government to introduce a poverty alleviation scheme or cash intervention schemes to empower the community economically.
(NAN)