‘Nigeria has three weeks to appeal’
THE hope of the Gbaramatu communities in Delta State to get the Federal Government to pay a fine of N99.9 billion received a boost when a London court in the United Kingdom (UK) tentatively registered a Federal High Court, Asaba judgment which directed the government to pay the huge amount for the damage it did to the communities.The government has three weeks to appeal the registration or face the consequences.

The registration, which is one in the communities’ efforts to get a worldwide freezing injunction against the assets of the Federal Government of Nigeria, however has an impeding caveat: the court declined to register the judgment against the President of Nigeria and the Attorney-General but however registered it against Maj.-Gen. Sarkin Yakin Bello, the third defendant who is jointly and severally liable.

The London judge recognised the immunity the President of Nigeria enjoys in the country’s constitution.The registration of the judgment made on Monday, but which came to light yesterday in Abuja showed that Justice of Holroyde of the Queen’s Bench Division of the Royal High Court of Justice England and Wales ordered that the judgment of Justice Ibrahim Buba in the sum of N99.9 billion obtained in Federal High Court Asaba in December 2013 be registered in England.

The registration of the Federal High Court judgment in London has also been conspicuously displayed on the Internet website, www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2016/8.hotmail Cite as: [2016 EWHC 8 (QB)

It would be recalled that in their response after the May 2009 attack, their counsel, Mr. Selekeowei Larry (SAN), filed the suit against the President of th‎e Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Maj.-Gen. Sarkin Yarkin Bello (for himself and on behalf of the Joint Task Force in Delta State) as First, second and third defendants.

In his judgment, Justice Ibrahim Buba declared that the bombardment of the plaintiffs’ communities in the Gbaramatu Kingdom of Warri South-West Local Council‎ of Delta State “by the defendants resulting in demolition/destruction of houses, household furniture/wares, boats, canoes, domestic animals and displacement of members of the communities, among others, is in violation of section 217 (2) (c) of the 1999 Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional.