Community, activist appeal Milan Court judgement dismissing

The Egbema Voice of Freedom (EVF), Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA), and Aggah community activist, Pastor Nicholas Evaristus Ukaonu, have filed an appeal against the April 9 judgment of the Ordinary Court of Milan in the case against Eni S.p.A. and Oando Energy Resources Nigeria Limited, formerly known as NAOC.

The lawsuit challenged the companies’ failure to resolve chronic flooding in Aggah community of Rivers State, despite commitments made under a 2019 Terms of Settlement (ToS) facilitated by Italy’s Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) National Contact Point.

Pastor Ukaonu explained that the Italian energy giant, Eni S.p.A, has drilled for oil in and around the town of Aggah, which borders and overlaps the Mgbede Oil Field since the 1960s. In the early 1970s, a subsidiary of Eni known as Nigerian Agip Oil Company Ltd. (NAOC) created three 40,000 ft2 earthen embankments in three locations on the Mgbede Oil Field to support wellheads and built raised access roads to connect them. These constructions block the natural streams that used to flow through Aggah and no adequate drainage channel exists. As a result, the streams back up and extreme flooding covers Aggah’s farmlands and residential areas every year, typically during the rainy season between July and September.

Several people have drowned in the floodwaters over the years. Floods also destroy sewage systems, resulting in vast pollution and harm to the ecosystem.

Counsel to Aggha community, Chima Williams said the community approached the Millan lower court for Justice but in a shocking development, the judge ruled that ENI and NAOC fulfilled their contractual obligations simply by constructing 14 drainage channels and by conducting feasibility studies. The Court stated that the 2019 agreement did not create a “guarantee” to eliminate flooding, but only an obligation to perform the specific works listed.

The Court declared the claims for damages inadmissible on “standing” grounds, arguing that the EVF could neither claim on behalf of its membership of almost 1,900 affected residents, nor on its own behalf as a mission-driven organisation and awarded €180,000 litigation fee against the community.

In his words ,Pastor Ukaonu queried: “How can the judge ask the oppressed to pay €180,000 to the oppressor, who has taken our oil for more than 50 years and left us flooded for the same number of years and counting? This is a difficult moment for us as a community, but we are not deterred.

“We have gone to appeal, regardless of the punitive cost to the oppressed,” he said.