After years of water degradation due to oil spillages from oil pipelines belonging to the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), the people of Ogoniland are set to receive, as compensation, N45.9 billion.
This comes on the heels of a ruling by a judge at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday, following the years-long legal battle between both parties.
In 2010, a Federal High Court had ruled in favor of the Ogoni people, directing Shell to compensate residents of the area.
Nine years prior, the people of Ogoniland had filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for the oil spills occasioned by the activities of the Shell in the community.
Shell, after being ordered to pay the sum of N17 billion as compensation by the judge of the Port Harcourt division of the Federal High Court, Ibrahim Buba, countered the ruling but lost.
Disclosing the oil companies’ readiness to pay was its lawyer, A.O. Ejelamo, at the court.
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Ejelamo requested permission on behalf of its client to pay the money through the chief registrar of the court in a bank account specially opened for the purpose of payment.
The resolution was that Shell would pay the money to the Ogoni people through their lawyer.
In the initial ruling almost 11 years ago, the court had ordered the payment of N17 billion with a 25 percent interest.
However, the charged interest was waived by the Ogoni people.
