SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Religion And Human Relations

CONTRIBUTORS:

Nkama, C.L;
Chiegboka, A.B.C,

ABSTRACT:

This dissertation titled “ethical evaluation of the impacts of mining in Ebonyi State Nigeria”
was carried out to find the extent to which mining operations in Ebonyi State were consistent
with named ethical principles. It was geared towards unearthing the history of mining in
Ebonyi State, examining the impacts of mining in Ebonyi State and the factors responsible
for the impacts, evaluating the impacts of mining in the light of some ethical principles and
ways the heavy impacts of mining can be ameliorated. Data were collected through oral
interviews and use of available data in printed records, reports journals, text books and so on
and were analyzed using discursive and analytical methods. The following were the findings
of this research: in the early 30’s, local miners in Ebonyi State (the villagers) engaged in
artisanal quarrying/ mining of lead employing traditional methods before the coming of
expatriate miners in the early 40’s. Mining has impacted positively in various dimensions to
the development of the State; the negative impacts are however severe and include habitat
modification, deforestation, contamination of air, land pollution, underground and surface
water pollution, destruction of roof tops through fly-rocks, soil erosion, crack effect on
houses resulting from blasting, noise pollution, socio-political impacts and so on. The
impacts were found to be a negation to the ethical principles of justice, human rights,
sustainability and solidarity. The viable means of ameliorating the impacts were found to
include: value re-orientation and education of miners to appreciate the above ethical
principles; formation of health policy on mining by the state government, organizing
awareness campaigns and sensitization programmes for people living in mine areas; removal
of bottlenecks from government agencies in order to facilitate the procurement of
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) by companies before operations; diversification of
the economy of Ebonyi State through prioritizing agriculture in order to shift emphasis from
mining; organizing artisanal miners into groups and co-operative societies for easy training
and monitoring, enforcement of mine closure, revegetation and resettlement of fauna.