The drums of death beat faster as the drilling machines dig deeper.

The deaths recorded from communities hosting mining activities continue to sky-rocket, but the society maintains a sustained indifference: hear the tale, mourn the dead, and move on.

Nothing more is done to avert the potential ‘death candidates’ in several mining host communities across Nigeria, where environmental pollution and degradation is happening on a daily basis.

Mining activities in Nigeria, largely unsupervised and grossly unregulated, has resulted in diseases, deformities and death of children and young adults in the communities where they are practiced.

The extreme nonchalance and incapability on the part of government regulators and sheer ignorance of artisanal miners, has over the years killed many and continues to kill more.

From Zamfara to Niger states, there have been reports of deaths from Lead poisoning in recent times, yet mining activities in these regions persist.

Global Rights, an international human rights capacity-building organisation, recently revealed to journalists that Dareta, a little village in Zamfara, with a total population of 800 people, has lost 76 children to lead poisoning.

In essence, a huge fraction of the town’s future adults, have been lost, and the deaths were largely unreported.

While those with ‘a choice’ in these towns have been forced to migrate from their homes and lands, the ‘choice-less’ Nigerians are subjected to the evil side of mining.

Many of the residents of these communities, who are still alive, are suffering from different medical conditions, such as stillbirths, paralysis, deafness, and brain damage.

In April 2013, the BBC reported that over 460 children had died as a result of lead poisoning from gold mining in Zamfara since 2009, and owing to recent statistics, it is apparent that the casualty figure has steadily increased every year since then.

According to the BBC, the rate at which lives have been lost in Nigeria to lead poisoning, is estimated to be the highest anywhere in the world.

Similarly, in May 2015, at least 28 children under the age of five reportedly died after drinking water poisoned by lead in Niger state.

The victims had lead levels 17 to 22 times higher than the limits established by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Painting a gloomy picture, the Nigerian Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, revealed that not less than 1,260 dangerous open mine pits are scattered around Nigeria.

During the recent workshop organized by Global Rights, the Director in charge of Mining Inspectorate Department, Engineer Salim Salaam, complained about artisanal miners, whom he blamed for the abandoned mining pits.

Although there are laws, rules and regulations guiding mining activities in the country, there is an apparent lack of capacity and competence in the Ministry of Mines and Cadastral office, in making sure that miners satisfy all requirements before digging.

The Environmental Impact Assessment, which should ordinarily be carried out before mining licenses are giving to the artisanal miners is disregarded most times, and consequently, the level of human rights violations in the sector increases.

While the Ministry of Mines and the Cadastral office pays lip service to the issue and gives the artisanal miners more than enough red tape, people are dying.

With an absence of a functioning Mineral Resources and Environmental Management Committee in most states, it is no wonder that the artisanal miners are wont to break mining laws in the communities where they are based.

At the moment, the solid minerals sector in Nigeria is under-exploited and casualties are constantly recorded, what then would happen when the Federal Government decides to pay more attention to the sector?

Will equal attention be paid to the potential casualties and ‘human beings’ living in the host communities?

Do the rights of the poor Nigerian, the majority of the populace, really matter?