By ABAH SUNDAY, Abuja
The Initiative for Women Miners in Africa (IWoMA), a brainchild of Minerals and Miners Centre (MMC), a non-governmental organisation, has awarded Miss Comfort Ezekiel, a girl-miner who had her right hand amputated at the hospital after surviving an accident he had about a year ago in the course of doing the menial mining job she used to do to make ends meet.
According to a statement, Comfort who now has to learn how to write with the left hand, has thankfully agreed to return to school and complete her secondary education as provided for in the scholarship, and probably study a course related to natural resources thereafter.
In her word of encouragement, the Director, MMC, Dr Comfort Asokoro-Ogaji, said during an interview that “Comfort Ezekiel, my namesake will make us proud even with her condition. She is left-handed and has an issue with her legs but certainly not her brain. She will succeed despite the challenges by the grace of God.”
At an event organised by IWoMA to mark this year’s International Women’s Day celebration on the 8th of March, the Kogi Women Miners Welfare Association released some gory images of a survivor girl-miner, Miss Ezekiel, who escaped death by the whiskers in the avoidable tragedy that consumed the lives of her colleagues.
The event was aimed at sensitising women, minerals ore off-takers, and other stakeholders on the need to ensure responsible social and economic mining practices in rural communities where women and girls are the majority artisanal workers in mine sites.
In her humble response to the economic hardship in the country and to be able to afford school fees and to feed, Comfort Ezekiel was earning one thousand Nara (N1000) daily for manually loading crushed rocks onto truck.
The poor girl and her colleagues after breaking lumps and loading Felspar on this doomed day staked their lives, climbed the loaded truck, and sat on the stones to get a lift to their destination to save some token.
The truck collided with another trailer and the rocks they helped to load, crushed them as they fell off the truck with the boulders sadly flying over them as well, instantly killing some of her colleagues in the process.
Comfort, now amputated, is a native of Ajaokuta Local Government Area of Kogi State. She spent one year in the hospital and was supported by the Kogi Women Miners Welfare Association headed by Mrs Janet Ogoru Ahiaba, who saw to it that the girls and women were treated at the hospital no matter what it took including depositing her car with the hospital as collateral to treat the girls while she sourced for funds for the hospital bills and with the help of a few Nigerians, the girls were treated.
Another girl involved in the accident and still at home with her scars is Helen Chiloba a 13 year old girl who also spent a year in the hospital and needs to return to school as a matter of urgency.
Helen hails from Bassa LGA in Kogi State and has been active in the mines through the help of her Aunt in Ajaokuta LGA, who accommodated her until the accident. She has now returned to
Odugbo village.