Three Crown Vs El-Tahdam: I Have No Authority To Give Lands – Man Who Signed Consent Letter For Mining License
In this interview in Abuja on Saturday 26th April 2025, Mr. Abdullahi Usman, signatory to the Consent Letter which El-Tahdam Exploration Limited presented to the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) for license says he has no authority to sign the document. He narrates how the Chairman, Yauri Emirate Mining Committee, Mr. Abdullahi Mai Akwai, summoned and misled him to sign the Consent Letter.
He commended the Emirate Council for prompt investigation and disciplinary action taken to restore dignity of the community, while warning operating companies to obtain documents through authorized channels.
Usman, who was suspended while investigations progressed, thanked the emirate authorities for diligently investigating the issue and restoring his office upon discovering that he was misled to sign the controversial document.
Usman, a native of Libata, Yauri Emirate, preferred to respond to questions in Hausa language. The information he transmitted was then translated into English and adopted by him.
He spoke to Francis Kadiri in Abuja, on Saturday.
Excerpts.
You are in the eye of the storm for signing a Consent Letter which a mining company (El-Tahdam Exploration Limited) presented to MCO for license, claiming it obtained the consent document from Libata Community. What is your role in this controversy?
I want to begin that I am a devout Muslim, and this means that I do my best to live according to the injunctions of Almighty Allah as contained in the Holy Quran. Although I am secretary to the Village Head of Libata Community, I carry out instructions of the Village Head which he sometimes delegates through some members of his council or through whoever he deems fit.
As Secretary to the Village Head, do you have authority to sign Consent Letters?
No, I do not have the power to do so.
Who has authority to sign Consent Letters?
Only land owners have the power and authority to sign while traditional rulers sign as witnesses.
So, why did you sign the Consent Letter that suggests that Libata Community granted consent to El-Tahdam Exploration Limited?
That is what I was trying to explain to you.
In Libata, we have a leader, he is the Village Head, but there are also some senior officials through whom the Village Head may give instructions. The Chairman of the Mining Committee of Yauri Emirate is among the senior officials through whom the Emir can delegate responsibility or pass a message. The official is the chairman of Yauri Emirate Mining Committee.
So, on that fateful day, I was summoned alongside some other people by the Chairman of the Mining Committee. We went to meet him. He told us that there is an instruction from above to sign a Consent Letter, and also to append a date. As expected, I am a loyal staff of the emirate and I had no reason to doubt him. So, we all signed the document. While signing the document, we were instructed to backdate it, and we did because we believed that the instruction was handed down from above.
Trouble started after some days, and we were summoned to Birnin Kebbi. When we got to Birnin Kebbi, a government official alongside Members of the Kebbi State House of Assembly questioned us as part of their investigations, and challenged our authority to sign Consent Letter. The official made it clear to us that the land in respect of which we signed Consent Letter had been granted to a mining company known as Three Crown Mines Limited.
He told us that we acted on behalf of the community, and that we have no authority to do so because we are not the owners of the land, and that nobody instructed or authorized the Mining Committee Chairman to ask us to sign the Consent Letter.
In all sincerity, I am not a landowner, therefore I cannot give land. I can only give what I have. The land in question is not a community land, it belongs to individuals.
We explained to him that we were only being loyal to constituted authority, and that we believed that we were protecting the interest of the emirate. To cut the story short, we were all suspended, including the Chairman of the Mining Committee of Yauri Emirate, and then investigations commenced.
Was your name on the Consent Letter you signed?
Yes, my name was on it.
Do you by any means have any prior knowledge that your name will be on the letter?
Not at all! I was surprised to find that my name was on it. Moreso, I had thought that the Consent Letter referred to a different land.
What was the outcome of the investigation?
The investigations established that everything was planned and executed by the Chairman of Yauri Emirate Mining Committee without the knowledge of the emirate. He was the one who summoned me to sign the Consent Letter. Although all those involved were initially suspended, but those who were found innocent were restored to their positions after the investigations.
Are you aware that the document you signed was presented to a government office as part of requirements for a mineral licence?
Yes. However, it is clear that I was misled to fill and sign the consent form (as land owner) in favor of El-Thadam Exploration Limited, which the company used to apply for license as a result of which Exploration License N0. 45689 was granted to the company. The same consent agreement was also used to obtain Mining Lease.
I became aware of this when another mining company, Three Crown Mines showed that they had been granted consent over the same land. And the Land Owners had earlier given its consent to Three Crown Mines Limited over the land, and endorsed by the community.
So, what are you doing to correct the error?
I am now aware that there was no order from above authorizing the Chairman of Mining Committee to instruct me to sign the Consent Letter.
I took some steps to inform relevant stakeholders including the Mining Cadastre Office (MCO) that the Consent Letter in pocession of El-Thadam should be disregarded because it was signed by an authorized person. I wrote a letter dated 13th August 2024 to the MCO detailing the true position of things.
So, in order to set the record straight, I have sworn an affidavit stating how I was misled by a superior official and I want the public to be aware of this.
I made it clear in the affidavit that it is necessary to set the record straight regarding the consent which I was misled to sign. This information is verifiable even from the suspended Chairman of the Mining Committee. I am sure that he will admit that I acted on his instruction without knowing that he was not authorized to instruct me.
How do you feel about the face off between two mining investors?
I am not happy that there is disagreement between Three Crown mining and El-Thadam Exploration Limited, and I believe that truth will lead to justice. This is why I have recounted all I know about he issue. I have also been part of the efforts of the Yauri Emirate Council to resolve the case amicably even though the case was in court. In respect of theses efforts, I am in Abuja alongside some other stakeholders to provide genuine information on the issues that led to the issuance of the Consent Letter toward amicable resolution of the issue.
The Committee Chairman will agree that those facts were grossly misrepresented. I stated in the affidavit I swore that I was given the impression that the land in respect of which my consent was sought and obtained, was different from the actual one.
Who are the stakeholders and how have you sensitized them?
I have with me copies of the affidavit of facts that I swore to, at the Federal High Court in Kebbi. Together with the some stakeholders from Yauri emirate, we have delivered the document to the stakeholders.
They include the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development (MoSMD); The Director General, Mining Cadsatre Office (MCO); the Inspector General of Police (IGP); the Director General, Department of State Security Service (DSS); The Commandant, Mining Marshalls at the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corp; the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
In addition to efforts made at the federal level, I also made efforts at the state level alongside stakeholders including the Yauri Emirate Council. I delivered the same document to the office of His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Kebbi State; the Speaker, Kebbi State house of Assembly; the Hon Commissioner of Police, Kebbi State; Federal Mines Officer, Kebbi State; Mines Environmental Compliance (MEC) Office in Kebbi State; DSS, Kebbi State; Civil Defence, Kebbi State; and the Kebbi State Ministry of Mines.
So, those are some of the efforts I have made together with stakeholders to correct the anomaly, to build peace and harmony and ensure economic development of Yauri emirate.
“You have peddled lies to the effect that we, the members of the Host community (ies) have executed a Community Development Agreement with your company, El-Tahdam Exploration Limited and that the company has since commenced the execution and implementation of the agreed terms as contained in the fictitious community development agreement. It is necessary to state here and as you are aware, that, as community leaders, we have never had any contact with you or your company, El-Tahdam Exploration Limited, let alone signing a community development agreement with you or/and your company, EL-Tahdam Exploration Limited. No single project is or has ever been under execution by El-Tahdam exploration Limited in any of our communities and as we know very well that your company has no sites at all within our domain. How could we have executed a Community Development Agreement when we the members of the community have never had any discussions or deliberations in respect of same with the said EL-Tahdam company!
The Lawless Gavel: Nigeria’s Descent Into Judicial Conquest, By Basil Odilim
There is something far more dangerous than banditry in our forests and kidnapping on our highways. It is the silent, polished crime happening behind the oak-paneled courtrooms of Nigeria. It is the smiling face of a judge who has traded his conscience for a brown envelope. It is the silk-wrapped arrogance of a lawyer who now makes his living not from defending the innocent but from perverting justice. This is Nigeria’s new civil war—a war waged not with guns but with gavels.
How did we get here? Where else in the world do judges sit over cases they have already sold, while lawyers draft legal arguments not for the court, but for bribes? Where else is justice so bastardized that those who dare to speak the truth are punished for contempt, while those who auction judgments are garlanded as “My Lord”?
Even the politicians, the most notorious wreckers of society, now tremble before the judiciary. Not out of respect, but fear—fear that one judge’s signature can erase elections, destroy legacies, or declare the dead as winners. The judiciary is no longer a separate arm of government in Nigeria; it is the shadow emperor. And like all emperors, it demands loyalty, not to the Constitution, but to the cartel.
What we are witnessing is not corruption—it is judicial conquest. A conquest where the law no longer serves the people but enslaves them. A conquest where judgments are passed, not in the courtroom, but in the corridors of power and the vaults of banks. A conquest where the very soul of justice is auctioned to the highest bidder, while the poor, the innocent, and the hopeful are trampled like vermin.
Our fellow citizens killed by kidnappers and herdsmen, our compatriots watching their children go to bed hungry, the sick who cannot afford a single drug, classrooms without teachers or equipment, and roads that have turned into death traps–these tragedies shouldn’t have happened. They are the direct consequences of a nation conquered not by foreign invaders but by judicial gangsters. When justice is broken, everything else falls apart.
Travel across Nigeria. Look around at the palatial homes in exclusive neighborhoods, the marble-floor offices in Abuja and Lagos, the latest bulletproof SUVs, and European sports cars gliding over cratered roads. Then, walk into the first-class lounge at the airport or board an international flight—take a moment to ask: Who are these people? What do they do for a living? You’ll find they’re not our professors, not our engineers, not our innovators or inventors. No, it is the new emperors of Nigeria—participants in the judicial conquest. Lawyers, judges, fixers, court clerks-turned-billionaires. Fearlessly, they’re parading their newfound treasure and nobility in a broken republic.
The silence has been too long, and too many are afraid to speak. But what do I do? Join the terrified public? Then, what will I tell Him who gave me my voice? What will I say to my father in his grave—the man who spent all he had to give me an education—if I choose silence over truth? Shall I keep quiet for fear of those who, by the weight of their atrocities, should be running for their lives whenever the truth is aired? No. I will not.
And let me say this with the burden of fairness: I’m sorry I have to say this painful truth, because amid all this decay, there are still a few good lawyers and judges—men and women of honor caught in a rotten system they can’t reform alone. But even their silence is being weaponized against them. Their courage must rise now more than ever because history teaches us that every fallen great civilization collapsed from within—once their judicial systems were sold to the dogs.
Let the world not be deceived. Nigeria’s greatest tragedy is not poverty. It is not insecurity. It is not even political corruption—it is the weaponization of the judiciary against its own people.
No society survives long when its courts become crime scenes. No republic thrives when its judges become executioners (killers) of truth. And no nation has a future when its Constitution becomes a napkin for thieves in silk.
Until we reclaim the judiciary, Nigeria will remain a conquered people—not by colonizers, but by those sworn to protect them. May the God hear our cries.