Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Ejamah-Ebubu community in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State has applauded the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba for getting Police operatives in the state to obey court judgement in a case bothering on disbursement of oil spill compensation funds in the community.
Recall that the community had petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, over persistent harassment by the Police following the oil spill compensation released by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited to the community.
Counsel to Ejama-Ebubu Community, Barr. Ayodele Salami, said when the community received the compensation funds from Shell, a 13-man Disbursement Committee was setup to distribute the sum of N5million to every member of the community including children, and also carried out road construction projects in the community.
Salami disclosed that some disgruntled members of the community, after receiving their share of the money, resorted to using the police to intimidate and harass members of the Committee, including the community chief, Chief Peter Oguru, to sign off all the funds to them.
He said the harassment began since June 2022, the community went to court and got a judgement by Justice Phoebe Ayua of the federal high court on 31st August 2022, which ruled that the 13-man committee should not be subjected to any form of police harassment.
The also expressed the gratitude to the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Effiong Okon, for his interventions which they suspected was the reason they were not arrested and detained by the Police after being invited again by the State’s Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department in Port Harcourt.
The Committee speaking through their legal counsel, Ayodele Salami, expressed satisfaction in the outcome of the Police recent invitation to his clients, saying that it was within the provisions of the court order in an ongoing court case on the matter.
He noted the appeal by the members of the Committee that the matter be handled by the police in the State, adding that journeying to Abuja from time to time was too hectic for them, particularly the community paramount and Chairman of the disbursement committee, who was in his 80s.
“I can confirm to you that the meeting between my clients, G-13 and the Police yesterday went very well, my clients’ said statements were taken from them and after which they were asked to go home and come back on a date in January.
“I am grateful to the IGP and the CP here in the state for their quick intervention, after the media outburst last time, what transpired yestetday was contrary to what had been going on, so we’re happy that the Police hierarchy has done swift and great job here.
“Again contrary to the fillers we got yesterday before the G-13 got to the Police that already some officers from Force headquarters in Abuja were already around to take them down to Abuja as usual, it was confirmed again that there was no such thing.
“What is happening now is what the court judgement said that the police should do, invite the men from time to time to get statements from them to facilitate their investigations and let them go afterwards, but they were not doing it untill the step we took recently to involve the media.
“Even in the ongoing case, there is also a court order restraining the Police from harassing, arresting, and detaining them either in the state or taking them outside the state in respect of the case untill judgement is delivered.”
In 2020, the Court had ordered SPDC to pay a cumulative compensation of N285billion to Ejama-Ebubu Community following a devastating oil spills from the company’s facility which destroyed the community’s ecosystem in the late 1970s during the civil war.
Shell and the community eventually reached an out-of-court settlement, and the sum of N45billion was released by the Dutch oil firm to the community in 2021.
While the legal counsel to the Ejama-Ebubu community got half of the money, having represented the community for 31years without payment, the sum of N23billion went to the community.
