Judicial respite has come the way of members of Ejama Community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State, having secured a garnishee order absolute on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), from the account of First Bank, as guarantors of the judgement debtor, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

The Eleme Community will receive the sum of N182.7 billion, being compensation for oil spillage suffered at the hands of Shell as far back as 1970.

Ruptured pipelines had caused thousands of barrels of oil to spill into an area approximate of 255 hectares of arable agricultural land, fishing swamps and rivers thereby causing human, wildlife, aquatic and agricultural losses.

In 1999, the community decided to sue Shell to seek appropriate redress for environmental/ecological injustices inflicted on their land.

In 2001, a fresh lawsuit was filed at the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt against SPDC and its parent companies – Shell of Netherlands and Shell of United Kingdom. The case passed through four different justices before judgement was delivered in June 2010.

SPDC then gave a Bond Guarantee, stipulating that First Bank of Nigeria would pay Ejama community the value of the judgment debt and interests thereon, in the event that its appeal to the Court of Appeal failed.

According to sources, SPDC and its parent companies appealed the judgment in 2010. This passed through six different panels and in 2017, SPDC lost the appeal. But after losing the appeal, SPDC instructed First Bank to renege on their guarantee, which it did. This gave rise to a series of six different litigations in various courts against First Bank and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Determined to protect its interests, SPDC and its parents’ companies approached the Supreme Court in 2017 to reverse the two judgments against them. But the apex court in its judgment, affirmed the appellate court’s verdict.

All this while, SPDC had reneged on payment of the judgment debt on the ground that it had lodged an appeal at the Supreme Court. The enforcement cases had been to Owerri, Abuja and Lagos, among others in six different lawsuits, but on January 11 2019, Shell’s appeal was dismissed at the Supreme Court.

It was following the dismissal of their appeal by the apex court that the Ogoni chiefs resumed the garnishee proceedings which they have now won.

Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, delivering a fresh judgement, granted a garnishee order compelling the CBN to pay the people of Ejama Community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State a total sum of N182.7 billion. The amount which is to be deducted from the account of First Bank in the custody of the CBN.

Ekwo made the nisi order absolute against the CBN and First Bank Plc. sequel to a similar one made by Justice Ibrahim Buba on June 3, 2019.

Buba, after listening to the submissions of the parties in the suit, in his earlier judgement in 2010, had awarded N17 billion to the representatives of the Ogoni people.

The court equally granted the Ogoni chiefs a 25 percent interest charge on the principal sum of about N17 billion. SPDC then appealed against the judgement and applied for a stay of execution of the judgement pending the appeal.

Accordingly, in December 2018, the judgement creditors (Ogoni representatives) not only commenced garnishee proceedings at the Federal High Court in Owerri presided over by Justice Lewis Allagoa, it also filed contempt proceedings against the bank before Buba who delivered the judgement in Port Harcourt in 2010 but now sitting in Lagos.

In his ruling, Ekwo after hearing Mathew Echo with Princewill Akinseye George and others, held, “That an Order Absolute is hereby made upon the Order Nisi of this court made on June 3, 2019, compelling the garnishee to pay over to the judgement creditors/applicants monies belonging to the guarantor/surety/debtor (First Bank of Nigeria Limited) in the garnishee’s (CBN) custody in satisfaction of the judgement debt in Suit No. FHC/PH/CS/231/2001 (later renumbered Suit No. FHC/ASB/ CS/57/2010): Chief Isaac Osaro Agbara & 5Ors. V. C.B.” & 2 Ors. Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/562/19 2/ Agbara & Ors, vs. the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited & Ors., which judgement debt the guarantor/surety/debtor secured and guaranteed to pay the judgement creditors in the sums of: (a) as special damages; (b) Interest for delayed payment for five years from 1996 at 25 percent per annum i.e. (c) 25 percent of the said sum till the date of judgment. (d) N10 billion as general damages; and (e) 10 percent interest on the judgement debt till payment giving a total of N76, 871,175,831.18 as at June 14, 2010, being the date of the judgement but with the accrual of post judgement interest totalled N182.768, 696,651.89.”

The parties in the suit are yet to respond officially to the development since the outcome of the judgment was first reported by the media.