LAGOS: Nigeria’s government has appointed a 10-member independent panel to investigate the deaths of 37 people in a paramilitary civil defence force holding cell, the interior minister said Saturday.

Thirty-seven young men were found dead inside a crowded cell in Minna, the capital of central Niger state, on Thursday after their arrest on suspicion of illegal gold-mining by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

Survivors recounted being crammed in the cell with poor ventilation, and one said a substance that stung their throats and noses was sprayed into the cell before the door was slammed shut.

They said their calls for help were ignored.

President Bola Tinubu on Friday ordered an urgent, “full and transparent investigation” over Thursday’s deaths.

He said he would not tolerate deaths caused by “official negligence, abuse, dereliction of duty”.

The panel includes a retired senior state intelligence officer, a medical expert, a human rights activist and a miners’ association.

It has two weeks to finalise investigations and submit its report which should determine “responsibility, complicity, negligence, and misconduct”, said minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo in a statement.

He added that 20 NSCDC officers and guards who were involved in the arrests and detention of the miners had been suspended.

Their boss was suspended on Friday.

Niger state, more than twice the size of Belgium, is rich in minerals and attracts thousands of artisanal miners — most of them lured by the hope of striking gold.