News Room — Ajifa Solomon
As dawn breaks over Angwan Rukuba, a suburb in Jos North, Plateau State, the sky glows a fiery orange, Asibi Musa rises from her bed, preparing for another gruelling labour day. At 75, she still makes her daily pilgrimage to the large boulder near Ring Road, where she has crushed stones for over half a century to survive.
Now frail, Asibi relies on a walking stick to steady her trembling frame as she slowly makes her way to the quarry. Her workplace is the open, barren ground where stones lie in rough heaps. These stones, cold and hard, are her livelihood. With a metal hammer in her hands, she breaks them into smaller pieces, which will be sold for construction or road repairs.
Yet this backbreaking work comes with a price. Years of inhaling stone dust have ravaged her lungs, making each breath a laboured rasp. Like many other women at the quarry, every breath is now accompanied by a raspy wheeze—an irreversible consequence of her trade.
“The work I’ve been doing over the years has taken its toll on me,” she said. “I wake up every day, and I have to provide for my family and care for my children. I have no one to help me, and my husband is late.”
Asibi is bent over with years of hunching over rocks. Wheezing and massaging her cramped muscles, she continues hitting the rock into finely crushed stones. Her “protective gear” is an old piece of cloth tied around her legs—woefully inadequate against the sharp stones and frequent slips of her hammer.
“Several times, when I break the rocks, the metal hammer falls on my legs and results in severe discomfort. But even at that, I have to continue working,” Asibi confessed between laboured breaths.
The Hidden Health Cost of Quarrying
In Plateau state, the stone-crushing industry sustains thousands, with many artisanal miners earning a living from this backbreaking labour. Their makeshift stalls, with stones neatly arranged in piles, dot the roadsides, enticing passers-by.
While stone crushing provides a livelihood, the health risks these miners face are severe and largely unaddressed.
Rahab Serewe, another long-serving stone crusher in her mid-sixties, knows this reality all too well. “I have reached like [sic] 20 years in this business,” she told JoeyOffAir. “I have high blood pressure, but even at that, I have no choice but to keep working. I was selling tomatoes previously, but after my husband died, I had to come up with a better source of income.” Rahab’s family of four depends on her for daily bread.
Her skin is now leathery and darkened from endless hours under the sun.
Rahab’s story mirrors that of countless others. Women like Rachel, only 29 but looking far older than her years, have turned to stone-crushing as a last resort. Years after dropping out of secondary school, she was forced out of her previous job as a hairstylist due to poor patronage. Rachel now sits at the roadside, breaking rocks for a meagre income that supports her and her young child.
She is just one out of the over ten million unemployed youths in Nigeria.
A study in North Central Nigeria, where Plateau state is located, found that stone crushing can cause “lung functioning abnormalities” and even lead to lung cancer in extreme cases.
Deaths from accidents are also not uncommon, as seen five years ago when a rock collapsed and crushed one of the female miners.
Economic Woes
Despite the physical toll, the income from stone crushing is barely enough to survive. Rainy seasons, in particular, bring further hardship. The demand for construction materials plummets as building projects slow down, leaving the quarry workers with little to sell.
“There are days when we don’t have customers,” Rahab affirmed. Fewer customers in this meagre-paying job mean that their families and dependents are at risk of going hungry.
Even when clouds gather, and the threat of rain looms, the crushers carry on. The sound of hammers striking stones is relentless. As the heavens open, they simply take shelter, waiting for the downpour to subside before resuming their work.
For John Yada, a 50-year-old rock miner, headaches are now a part of life after more than two decades in the trade. Yet, he soldiers on.
“I get headaches, but I’m a strong man,” John says with a half-smile. “I thank God for everything.”
Paying the Price for Paltry Wages
For all of this backbreaking labour, the returns are meagre. According to Laruba William, another crusher and breadwinner for a family of seven, a 50kg bag of finely crushed stone sells for just ₦1,000 ($0.62), while medium-sized bags are sold for ₦800 ($0.50). It’s a pittance, barely enough to cover daily expenses, especially with the rising inflation.
To get a bag of stones, the miners begin a steep ascent to the hill nearby, hammering away at the top. After about five hours, cracks start to form slowly but surely at the perimeter, they have been chipping at. Soon, the rocks give way to the earth below from where the artisans hurl them away to their respective workstations.
“In one day, we can get up to five bags of gravel,” Rahab said.
The hill by the roadside at Ring Road has shrunk noticeably to a sizable proportion from years of chipping at it by artisans.
According to a recent KPMG report on the Nigerian mining sector, its contribution to the national economy remains modest, accounting for just 0.77% of the country’s GDP in the third quarter of 2023. This limited impact is likely due to the prevalence of illegal and informal mining operations nationwide, including in Plateau state. In 2016 alone, the state’s granite production totalled 8,961.19 tonnes, highlighting its significance within the sector.
Plateau state, famed for its striking tableland formed by mountainous rock formations, derives its name from this unique geography. For many families here, artisanal stone crushing is a way of life, albeit one that offers little financial reward. Yet, despite the meagre earnings, these workers confront the mountains with a resilience and contentment that is deeply humbling.
“We thank God Almighty for everything,” they said repeatedly. Amid the discordant clang of hammers striking stone, the workers occasionally sing, using music to alleviate their pain, even as vehicles roar past.
This resilience has even attracted attention, as in the case of Mama Hamsatu, whose singing while working with stones led to a collaboration with Grammy award-winning producer Caleb Balasa, known as Mr Kleb and an Al Jazeera documentary.
A Sector Lacking Data and Regulation
Despite its importance to local livelihoods, manual stone crushing in Plateau remains largely undocumented, with little data available on its contribution to internally generated revenue. A government official from the state’s Ministry of Works, who requested anonymity, confirmed to JoeyOffAir that no formal regulations govern these artisanal operations.
The source said that manual crushers’ subsistent mode of operation made room for more patronage for clients with smaller projects.
“Those who cannot afford stones from the bigger quarries would want to patronise the manual crushers,” the official said. “You can’t expect a quarry to sell you less than three tonnes of stone, but these manual crushers are the ones who sell to people who do not have major projects but need gravel in small quantities.”
Although the artisans do not pay taxes directly to the government, they remit an unfixed percentage of their income to the land owner as payment for working on his land.
“Since it’s his land that we are using, whenever he comes around, we have to give him a part of the money we make from sales,” Laruba confirmed.
The daily grind continues. For Asibi and thousands like her, the future holds no promise of relief, but they soldier on.
