Chinese Firm’s Armed Kad Lithium Site, Backed by ₦250m Bribes, Bogus “Abuja Connections”

By MBT Investigative Desk

A Chinese-owned mining company, Mystics Mining Resources Limited, triggered outrage in Ambam community after it stormed a lithium-rich mining field on November 15, 2025, with an armed escort from the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), openly boasting that it had “backing from the top in Abuja” and would “kick every other company out.”

Eyewitnesses told this newspaper that heavily armed NSCDC personnel accompanied the Chinese convoy as it rolled onto the site legally occupied by Range Mining Ltd, a Nigerian-registered firm operating under a Community Development Agreement (CDA) with local landowners for the past two years.

The brazen incursion shattered a fragile peace that had seen jobs, scholarships, boreholes and road repairs flow into the community.

Within days, the takeover plot began to collapse under scrutiny.

Kaduna State’s mining agency, KMDC, flatly denied ever hearing of Mystics Mining. “We don’t know Mystics Mining and I have ordered Civil Defence to stop them immediately. They will be arrested,” Engr. Shuaibu Kabir Bello, KMDC Managing Director, told journalists.

The state NSCDC commandant who initially authorised the armed deployment later backtracked, admitting he acted on documents that turned out to be worthless once he realised Mystics was targeting the same field already secured by Range Mining.

Multiple sources, including a senior security officer speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed that Mystics Mining had already disbursed over ₦250 million in cash bribes across the community to create the impression of local consent. Several landowners who each received ₦50 million now say they were deliberately lied to.

“The Chinese told us they had an agreement with Range Mining for collaboration. That was why we took the money,” one landowner said bitterly.

“There is no land sale agreement. They should show the document if we sold our land to them. We were deceived.”

On November 28, the Commander of the NSCDC Mining Marshals, John Onoja, convened both companies and delivered a damning verdict: neither firm yet possesses a valid mining licence from the federal Mining Cadastre Office, but Range Mining had been providing legitimate site security while awaiting approval, an arrangement the NSCDC described as “a welcome development we encourage from citizens.”

Commander Onoja ordered an immediate return to the status quo ante;  the situation before Mystics’ armed invasion on November 15 and declared that Mystics Mining “has no business on the controversial minefield” until it secures proper documentation. Monitoring teams have been deployed to enforce the directive.

The Ambam episode fits a disturbing national pattern. From Kwara to Osun, Zamfara to Akwa Ibom, Chinese-operated mines have repeatedly been shut down or accused of operating with forged licences, massive environmental damage, and the use of cash inducements to bypass communities and regulators.

Residents now fear the ₦250 million already distributed has permanently fractured their once-united front. “That money is poison,” an elder lamented.

“It has divided brothers against brothers for the benefit of people who only see lithium in our soil and nothing else.”

As Commander Onoja’s investigation continues, Ambam remains on edge. The lithium beneath its farmlands, critical to the global green-energy transition has become both a promise of prosperity and a magnet for the very predation Nigeria’s mining laws were meant to prevent.

For now, the law has prevailed over guns, bribes and empty boasts of “Abuja backing.”

Whether it holds and whether Ambam can heal the wounds already inflicted will determine if Nigeria’s “white gold” rush belongs to its people or to whoever pays the highest price to steal it.