“Heat cannot kill a gold miner.”
''Heat Cannot Kill Miners''
And his statement raises a difficult question.
If the heat was responsible for the deaths, what happened when the first person collapsed?
What happened when the second person collapsed?
What happened when they started telling the officers that people were dying?
Because 37 people did not simply die at exactly the same moment.
According to the survivors, people began deteriorating while they were still inside the cell.
Dauda Shehu, a 29-year-old artisanal miner from Allawa in Shiroro Local Government Area of Niger State, was among those who survived.
He and dozens of other miners were arrested on September 15 and 16 during NSCDC operations targeting suspected illegal mining around Minna.
They were taken into custody.
Inside the facility, according to Dauda, the detainees were packed into a small and poorly ventilated cell.
There were so many people inside that they struggled to find space.
Then the heat became unbearable.
The men began sweating heavily.
They struggled to breathe.
They banged on the cell door and called out to the officers.
They asked for help.
They asked for water.
And according to one of the survivors, things became so desperate that some of them eventually drank their own urine because they were extremely thirsty.
Then people began collapsing.
One after another, according to the survivors.
They told the officers that people were dying.
They continued banging on the door.
But the survivors said their cries for help were ignored.
One survivor later recalled that when a detainee fainted, the officers were alerted, but the door was still closed.
Another survivor said some of those who survived were closer to the entrance, where they apparently had better access to air.
Then the number of dead kept rising.
37 people eventually died.
And this is where the story becomes difficult to understand.
If someone collapses inside a detention cell, that is already an emergency.
If several people collapse, it becomes an even bigger emergency.
If detainees are shouting that they cannot breathe, begging for water and telling officers that people are dying, what happens next?
Who was checking on them?
How frequently were they being monitored?
When did the officers realise that something was seriously wrong?
When was medical help called?
And perhaps the biggest question:
What happened between the first death and the 37th?
Those are questions the investigation now has to answer.
Because the exact cause of death has not been established.
The NSCDC initially attributed the deaths to a suspected disease outbreak.
But survivors described a very different experience inside the cell, including extreme heat, overcrowding, dehydration and difficulty breathing.
Other survivors also alleged that an unidentified substance was sprayed inside the cell shortly before people began experiencing symptoms.
Dauda described the substance as smelling like perfume.
Another survivor described it as smelling like pepper.
Reuters reported that it could not independently establish what substance was sprayed or whether it contributed to the deaths.
There is also disagreement over how the miners came to be described as illegal miners.
One survivor disputed that description and said they had been working at a mining site with permission from the person who controlled the site.
That claim has not been independently established.
But whether they were guilty of illegal mining or not does not answer the other question.
They entered custody alive.
The government was responsible for them while they were there.
And 37 of them died.
The Federal Government has now constituted an independent committee to investigate the arrests, the detention conditions, the deaths and what happened inside the facility.
Several NSCDC officers have also been suspended or placed in custody while the investigation continues.
Dauda survived.
He survived the heat.
He survived the overcrowding.
He survived the desperate thirst.
He survived drinking his own urine.
He survived watching people around him collapse.
But 37 other people did not.
And that is why this story should not end simply with the number 37.
Behind that number were fathers, sons, brothers and young people who entered a government facility alive.
Their families deserve to know exactly what happened after that door closed.
What happened between the first person collapsing and the death toll reaching 37?
That is one of the questions this investigation must answer.
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