A Minna High Court has ordered the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power to pay N1.1 trillion to the Samboro Community of Madaka District in the Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State, as compensation for damages suffered from the construction of the Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Dam.
Justice Mohammed Mohammed of High Court 4, gave the order in a judgement he delivered, holding that the construction of the Zungeru Hydropower Dam in the Samboro Community has created untold hardship for the people, affected farmland, and other economic trees in the community.
The judgement comes a year after the village head of the community, Abubakar Usman, and 2,844 other members of the Samboro community filed the case with the court, through its counsel, Muhammed Ndarani, demanding compensation.
Justice Mohammed ruled that it is the joint and several acts of the defendants in the construction of the Zungeru Dam Project that led to the continuous flooding and erosional confrontations in Samboro Community.
He adds that, “this has over the years occasioned untold and continuous destruction of the sources of livelihood of the plaintiffs, thereby forcefully ejecting them from their ancestral homes, and subjecting them to untold and immeasurable hardship, and causing irreparable damages to the plaintiffs’ means of livelihood.”
He pointed out that, having regard to the provisions of Section 39 of the Land Use Act and Section 44(1a and 1b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, the court is clothed with the jurisdictional competence to entertain, hear, and determine the reliefs of the plaintiffs, for the award of monetary compensation.
He ordered that the plaintiffs, being the original inhabitants of Samboro Community in Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State, having suffered as a result of the acts of the defendants, are entitled to monetary compensation for the destruction of their environmental and economic livelihood, and the untold hardship and total annihilation of all their sources of livelihood.
The judge also ordered the first defendant to pay the sum of one hundred million Naira as general damages, the cost of prosecuting the suit, and legal representation, and ten percent post-judgement interest per annum.
Editor: Ebuwa Omo-Osagie
