Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has offered to support the education of a teenage gold miner in Niger State whose account of alleged shootings at a mining site has gone viral on social media.

Atiku also appealed for the safety of the teenager, warning that his public statements should not expose him or his family to intimidation, harassment or retaliation.

The former vice president said he was prepared to support the boy’s education and ensure that financial hardship does not prevent him from pursuing his studies.

“I appeal specifically for his safety. His courage must not expose him or his family to intimidation or retaliation.

I am prepared to support his education and ensure that the brilliance we have witnessed is not buried by poverty,” Atiku said.He added that any attempt to contact or assist the teenager should be carried out through his family and relevant child-protection authorities.

“Any effort to reach him must be handled responsibly through his family and appropriate child-protection channels,” he said.The teenager, identified as Yusuf Aliyu, spoke to News Central Television in a video that has circulated widely online.

In the video, Aliyu alleged that personnel of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, had been shooting at miners at a gold mining site in Niger State.He also challenged the NSCDC’s initial explanation that the deaths of suspected illegal miners in its custody were caused by a disease outbreak.

According to the teenager, he and other young miners were under 18 and were working at the site because of severe poverty in their families.“We are under 18, and we are not allowed to be taken inside a cell. Heat cannot kill a gold miner.“We are not into illegal mining.

The Niger State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps don’t have the right to shoot at us.“We are not illiterate. We are educated. We do this to help our parents in one or two. Our parents are very poor. We are the ones feeding our parents. It is what we do here that we can pay our school fees,” he said.

Reacting to the teenager’s account, Atiku said the incident raised broader questions about poverty, child labour and the management of Nigeria’s mineral resources.

He questioned how communities located in areas rich in gold and other mineral resources could continue to experience widespread poverty and difficulties in educating their children.

“But this video raises a question that should trouble the conscience of every Nigerian: how can a community sitting upon gold remain so poor that it cannot educate its children? How can its wealth leave the soil while hunger and deprivation remain in its homes?” Atiku asked.

The former vice president’s intervention comes amid public attention surrounding the deaths of suspected illegal miners in Niger State and calls for clarification of the circumstances surrounding the incident.