For oil spillage which allegedly destroyed their means of livelihood, Raymond Smith, an environmentalist assisted some fishing communities in Bayelsa State, to sue oil giant, Orient Petroleum Development Company, demanding compensation of nine billion naira.
In a suit at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, they claimed the spillage occurred on April 2007, and adversely affected their means of livelihood. The plaintiffs, Chief Conference Kalama, Chief Dickson Bekinbo, and Prince Godsday Dakoru filed the suit in 2007 on behalf of registered fishing cooperative societies and 272 fishing communities and villages on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
They also sued on behalf of fishermen on the banks of the estuaries, creeks and rivers of the coastal region of Bayelsa State. The suit had gone through several judges due to transfers and started afresh severally.
The plaintiffs said they made 99 per cent of their income from fishing and fish farming. The water was pivotal to the life support systems of the plaintiffs and also fundamental to their socio-economic wellbeing.
On February 23, 2007, the pipelines they alleged ruptured resulting in the spilling of over 7.6 million liters of crude oil into the Atlantic Ocean. The spill, the plaintiffs said, did not only destroy their source of livelihood, but violated their right to earn a living from natural resources available to them.
Orient Petroleum had not taken any action to restore the natural resources destroyed as a result of the spill, they claimed. The plaintiffs were seeking a declaration that the defendant’s continued failure to restore the ecosystem of the lands and waters was unconstitutional and violated their rights to live in an environment favorable to their socio-economic development. The rights, they claimed, were guaranteed by Section 33 of 1999 Nigerian Constitution and articles 22 and 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
The plaintiffs prayed the court to nullify any document purporting to release Orient from paying them due compensation because the document related to an unconscionable bargain which was signed under economic duress and in breach of statutory provisions.
They were praying for an order that the defendants should commence post-impact remediation programs in respect of the plaintiffs’ lands and waters polluted by the defendant’s oil spill and do all such acts and things to clean up the environment of the plaintiffs and restore same to its original state.
The plaintiffs were also seeking 8.0 billion as special damages, interest on the amount at 10 per cent per annum from February 20, 2007 until judgment and full payment; 1.0 billion as general damages for alleged infraction of their constitutional and statutory rights, and 10 per cent interest on the sum from the date of judgment, until full payment.
Denying the plaintiffs’ claims, the company said while there was a spill, there was no evidence that it caused the damage the plaintiffs were alleging.
Orient also questioned a report prepared by an environmental health assessment expert, Mr. Raymond Smith, which purportedly recorded the extent of damaged of the ecosystem.
The firm exhibited before the court experts’ reports, which it said proved that the spillage could not have been so damaging as to warrant the suit and damages sought by the defendants.
Orient’s lawyer urged the court to dismiss the suit for being gold-digging, frivolous and abuse of process.
Justice Ibrahim Daniel adjourned the case till May 10.
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