Court orders FG to pay Sambolo community N1.1trn compensation for the damages caused by Zungeru dam.
By Yahaya Zakka Minna
A Minna High Court has ordered the Federal Ministry of mines and power to pay the sum of N1.1trn to the Samboro Community of Madaka District in Rafi Local Goverment 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 delivered on Monday, holding that the construction of Zungeru Hydro power dam in the Samboro Community has created untold hardship to the people, farmland and other economic trees in the affected community.
Alhaji Abubakar Usman the village head of Samboro Community and 2,844 other member of the community had on April 27, 2023 file the case at the court through counsel Muhammed Ndarani Mohammed demanding for compensation
Justice Mohammed ruled that the plaintiffs are the original inhabitants of the vast expanse of land situate , being and lying at Samboro Community.
Justice Mohammed ruled that it is the joint and several acts of the deffendants in the construction of Zungeru Dam Project that led to the continuous flooding and errosional confrontations on Samboro Community, adding that “this has overtime 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 &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 Goverment 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 enviromental and economic livelihood untold hardship and total annihilation of all their sources of livelihood.
” An order is hereby given directing the 1st deffendant to pay to the plaintiffs, forthwith,the sum of one trilion,one hundred and fifty billion, five hundred and ninety five million, forty seven thousand and two hundred and eighty eight naira (N1,115,595,047,288) as monetary compensation for the destruction of their farmlands, houses, ponds, sabotage to their economic welfare and survival, untold hardship and total annihilation of all their resources of livelihood in Samboro Community in Rafi Local Goverment area of Niger State”, he ruled
He also ordered the 1st deffendant to pay the sum of One hundred million naira (N100,000,000) as general damages and cost of prosecuting the suit and legal representation and ten percent post Judgement interest per annum”
