Data Collection Instrument Interviews

Artisanal mining has always been associated with very high environmental impacts due to the fact that the miners lack knowledge of the regulations that help to mitigate these impacts as well as the practice of applying crude mining methods. Those who are mostly engaged in artisanal mining are poor people without viable means of livelihood, or those who had other menial jobs that were not giving quick money and as lucrative as mining. For example, Oketa Friday in Ishiagu Enyigba in Abakaliki L.G.A was a plumber before abandoning that for artisanal mining. As at the time of the oral interview, he had 30 women and 37 men working in his mine pits. Attempts by the Regulatory body, NESREA or relevant government Agencies to intervene even with the best of motives, have always been greeted with hostilities and sometimes physical attacks. They are afraid that such interventions could take away their means of livelihood. However, the worsened situation should not be abandoned as it were, rather government ought to reach out to these communities consistently and lay bare their well meaning intentions to them.

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CHAPTER FIVE

ETHICAL EVALUATION OF THE IMPACT OF MINING IN EBONYI STATE

The ethical evaluation of mining in Ebonyi state appreciates that ethics is the study of the norms or standards of human behaviour. What then are some of these standards? Singer (1979) identified some of the standards or principles as sanctity of life, justice, purity, and et cetera.

However, for the purpose of this research, five moral principles will be employed in the evaluation, namely: Justice, human rights, sustainability, solidarity. The reason for adopting these principles is because the discourse borders on environmental ethics and the principles are universal moral principles that have been helpful in addressing moral issues in other disciplines other than mining. Moral principles are universal in nature and can apply distributive to various disciplines in the widest sense.

5.1 Justice

Etymologically, the word ‘justice’ has a Latin root ‘jus’, meaning right or law, this explains why it is conveniently referred to as a moral concept. Oxford English Dictionary defines the

“Just” person as one who typically “does what is morally right” and is disposed to “giving everyone his or her due”, offering the word “fair” as a synonym. A brief analysis of the meaning attempted so far will help to a large extent in stepping down the concept of justice to simple understanding.

Every action taken is considered right or wrong given some principles, rules, laws and the nature of the action done in relation to the effect of such actions. In other words, the action taken is judged just or otherwise to the extent of its fairness to everyone concerned. Justice takes into account the inalienable and inborn rights of all human beings and citizens, the right of all people and individuals to equal protection before the law, of their civil rights, without

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discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, wealth, or other characteristic, (Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia). This explanation of justice alludes to “fairness to all involved”.

Beyond the realm of interpersonal relationship, the meaning of justice is also determined at the level of political society to see how it applies to ethical and social decision making. For Plato, “justice is a virtue establishing rational order, with each part performing its appropriate role and not interfering with the proper functioning of other parts doing one’s own work and not meddling with what is not one’s own”. So this socio-political justice is each person doing the tasks assigned to him or her, and not interfering with others doing their appointed tasks (Reeve 1992). Aristotle says justice consists in what is lawful and fair, with fairness involving equitable distributions and the correction of what is inequitable. For Augustine, the cardinal virtue of justice requires that we try to give all people their due; for Aquinas, justice is that rational mean between opposite sorts of injustice, involving proportional distributions and reciprocal transactions. Hobbes believed justice is an artificial virtue, necessary for civil society, a function of the voluntary agreements of the social contract; for Hume, justice essentially serves public utility by protecting property. For Kant, it is a virtue whereby we respect others’ freedom, autonomy and dignity by not interfering with their voluntary actions, so long as those do not violate others’ rights; mill said justice is a collective name for the most important social utilities, which are conducive to fostering and protecting human liberty.

Rawls (1971) analyzed justice in terms of maximum equal liberty regarding basic rights and duties for all members of society, of equal opportunity and beneficial results for all. He regards justice as “the first virtue of social institutions” (p.3).

Western philosophers generally regard justice as the most fundamental of all virtues for ordering interpersonal relations and establishing and maintaining a stable political society.

The common denominators for all the definitions of justice by these western philosophers are

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the understanding of justice in terms of respecting persons as free rational agents and in terms of human conduct conforming to laws which will in turn regulate interpersonal and inter-social relations. Though there may disagreements about the nature, basis and legitimate application of justice, the above are the core.

More so, from the definitions of the philosophers ex-rayed, one could also discover treads of types of justice. For example, justice in Aristotle’s view consist in what is lawful and fair, with fairness involving distributions and correction of what is inequitable. Notably,

“distributive” and “retributive” types of justice are evident here. The same trend runs through their various definitions of justice.

Types of Justice and its Implication on the Impacts of Mining.

Nzomiwu (2012) identifies five subdivisions of justice, namely: commutative justice, distributive, legal, social and retributive justice. scholars with interest in environment have developed another types of justice known as Eco-justice, purely ethechiates to the environment apart from this latest addition, the five other types have various degrees of indirect application to environmental justice.