The chairman of the Investigative Committee in the Niger Miners’ Death, Jonathan Kure, has revealed that the incident scene was washed before medical investigators could examine crucial evidence that could have helped establish the cause of death of 33 miners at a detention facility.
Recall that the incident occurred on September 17, 2026, at a Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) detention facility in Niger State, where 33 miners died after being locked in an overcrowded cell.
Following the deaths, a committee was set up to determine the cause of deaths.
According to Kure, 75 people were detained during an operation on September 15 and 16, including 24 women, while 50 men were crammed into a single 12-by-12-metre cell. The men reportedly cried for water and pleaded for help amid extreme heat, but the cell guard refused to open the door, citing orders from a superior. When the cell was opened on the morning of September 17, 33 men were found dead, while 17 survived.
“33 lives were lost. The whole incident started and ended within the precincts of the NSCDC, and the detention facility in particular.
“The number of corpses that were counted and confirmed after the cell was opened on the 17th—early hours of the 17th, because the whole saga started on the 15th, when the first arrest was made. It was an operation week; we were declared as an operational week.
“So a meeting was held by the commander, which is staff, when he declared the week an operational week and directed that everybody should come prepared, starting from Tuesday. So, Tuesday, first round of arrest, and then on Wednesday, which was the 16th, second round of arrest.
“So at the end, that mass arrest was done, where 75 people were detained. One of them later took ill, and that one was kept outside. Among the 74 that were to be detained, there were 24 women. They had two cells; one cell was dedicated for the women. So when you take 24 out of 74, you have 50 males that were locked up in that single cell of 12 by 12 meters.
“From early hours of the evening of the 16th, these 50 persons had been crammed into that single cell. Of course, anybody who knows Niger is one of those states with very hot weather. So from the early hours of around 8:00, these people started crying of heat. They were crying for help: ‘Water, we are dying,’ and all that.
“The cell guard—only a single cell guard on duty—was told by one of his superiors when he was closing, ‘Don’t on no circumstance should you open this cell.’ And he was acting strictly on that order; he refused to use discretion. These people were dropping dead one after the other in the cell.
“So just to cut the story short, on the 17th of September, when the people on morning duty came, as they opened that cell, out of these 50 young men, 33 had dropped dead. Only 17 of them survived. No other death occurred anywhere else.
“When we were going through these gory situations, many of them vomited, and they all had bloodstains and all that. And by the time that cell was opened, all these things were there.
“And remember, there was this claim of either spray or disease and all that. Before we got there, all these had been washed up. Our pathological team, the medical team, when they went, we all needed all these things because when you do the autopsy, when you do the toxicology and all that, these are things that will give you signals as to what precisely led to the death.”
Favour Odima
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