Atiku Offers to Sponsor Education of Viral Niger Mining Boy

By Nafiu Muhammad Lema

Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has reacted to a viral video interview featuring Yusuf Aliyu, a young boy from a gold-mining community in Niger State.

The video, which has attracted widespread attention on social media, shows Aliyu speaking with notable clarity and confidence about his circumstances, amid concerns over poverty and the involvement of children in artisanal mining.

In a statement, Atiku said he had watched the video repeatedly and was deeply moved by the boy’s intelligence and circumstances.

“A child with such intelligence, clarity and confidence should be in a classroom building his future—not struggling for survival in a community surrounded by gold but buried in poverty,” Atiku said.

He said he did not view the boy simply as an “illegal miner”, but as a Nigerian child whose circumstances reflected broader failures to provide vulnerable communities with education and opportunities.

Atiku specifically appealed for Aliyu’s safety, warning that his visibility following the viral interview should not expose him or his family to intimidation or retaliation.

He also expressed readiness to support the boy’s education, while stressing that any effort to reach him should be handled through his family and appropriate child-protection channels.

The former Vice President used the incident to raise questions about the condition of communities endowed with mineral resources but facing widespread poverty.

“How can a community sitting upon gold remain so poor that it cannot educate its children?” he asked.

Atiku linked the issue to the wider debate over the Federal Government’s handling of artisanal and illegal mining, contrasting the approach of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration with that of President Bola Tinubu’s government.

He recalled the Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Development Initiative (PAGMI), established under Buhari to support the formalisation and development of artisanal mining.

Atiku argued that the Federal Government should explain what became of the initiative in Niger State and how mining communities are being supported.

His reaction also came amid public anger over the deaths of 37 suspected illegal miners in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Niger State. The Federal Government has since suspended 20 NSCDC officers and established a 10-member independent committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

Atiku said the incident should not be reduced to the question of whether those detained were illegal miners, arguing that enforcement of mining regulations must still respect citizens’ rights and dignity.

“The gold beneath their community should build classrooms and livelihoods, not graves,” he said.

The viral interview has consequently become part of a wider conversation about child poverty, artisanal mining, mineral wealth, education and the responsibilities of government toward mining communities.

Atiku said he would continue speaking about the plight of vulnerable children, stressing that their lives, dreams and future matter to Nigeria.