Thirty-seven miners die in NSCDC cells in Minna, and the governor shuts the city

Thirty-seven men picked up in raids on suspected illegal gold mines west of Minna were found dead in Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps cells on 17 September. The raids ran on 15 and 16 September in the Wushishi-Lukoto area. The Corps first spoke of a suspected disease. It later said the cause was not established and would wait on medical exams. Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago confirmed the death count and said autopsies and forensic tests were under way. By Friday many of the bodies had already been buried.

Dauda Shehu, 38, one of 12 survivors taken to hospital, told the New York Times that more than 60 people had been packed into a single cell with little air, food or water. He said the men banged on the door. That account sits against the Corps' first disease line. The two stories can both be incomplete. They cannot both be the full file.

The protest and the curfew

Hundreds of people came onto the streets of Minna on Thursday night and Friday. Some carried sticks, machetes and hunting rifles. A Reuters witness saw security forces fire live rounds. Other reports described tear gas. Witnesses said a government building was burned. Soldiers and police patrolled the capital of Niger State. After Friday prayers Bago imposed a 24-hour curfew until further notice.

Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo ordered a full inquiry and suspended the state NSCDC commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye. Commandant General Ahmed Abubakar Audi told Aniviye to report to Abuja and stand before the panel. The federal order and the state curfew arrived on the same day. One is paperwork. The other is a locked city.

Why the mines sit next to the cells

Niger State is part of the central belt where informal gold pits draw men who have no other cash wage. The NSCDC has a legal brief against illegal mining. That brief does not include a licence to hold 60 people in a room without air. The useful question after the autopsies is not only what killed the 37. It is how a paramilitary unit on a mine raid became the custodian of a packed cell, and who counted the men at the door when the door was locked.

Investigations announced on the day of a riot often shrink once the streets empty. The suspension of a commandant is a start. The buried bodies are a clock. If the medical file is not published while Minna is still under curfew, the official story will be written without the people who were in the room.