Ondo indigenes claim N3.1trn damages from Shell, secure court order against oil firm

Justice T.B Adegoke of the Federal High Court, Akure, Ondo State, has restrained the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited and four others from selling, allocating, vandalizing, and or disposing of any of their assets pending the hearing and determination of a suit filed against them where indigenes of Ugbo-Ilaje, Ondo State claim N3.1 Trillion in damages from Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited and secured a Mareva Order against the oil firm.

NNPC and others are top respondents to the suit

Other respondents in the suit are Shell International Company Limited, Shell International Exploration and Production Limited, the Attorney General of the Federation, and the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The restraining order followed as an ex parte motion filed and argued by Mohammed Ndarani (SAN) on behalf of the applicants, Prince Afolabi Akinruntan and 1,215 others, in a suit marked FHC/AK/CS/68/2023.

After reading the affidavit in support of the motion ex parte, deposed to by Prince Akinruntan and owner of Afolabi & Co. Fishing Enterprises, two attached exhibits and a written address filed on September 1, 2023, at the Registry of the Court, and after hearing Ndarani (SAN), counsel to the applicants, the Court restrained the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents from selling or disposing their assets whether by themselves or through proxies.

That the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respondents, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, Shell International Company Limited, Shell International Exploration and Production Ltd in suit No: FHC/AK/CS/68/2023 between Prince Afolabi Akinruntan & 1,215 Ors Vs. The court papers state that the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited and four others pending the hearing and determination of this suit”.

The courts said: “That the 1", 2nd and 3rd respondents, whether acting by themselves or through their agents, officers, employees, servants, assigns private representative, subsidiaries or otherwise howsoever described, are restrained from selling, allocating, vandalizing, and or disposing of any of their assets/properties including official structures, oil wells, oil fields, installations, vehicles, equipment, investments, offshore or onshore or any of its properties howsoever described in any part of the territory of Nigeria pending the hearing and determination of this suit.

“That the ex parte order will last pending the determination of this suit,” Justice Adegoke ordered on September 28, 2023.

Court to expedite hearing on the case

The judge declared that the suit should be given an accelerated hearing, adding that it shall be discharged if it is shown that the Court has been deceived in making the order.

The applicants, who are members of the indigenous communities in Ondo State, sued the respondents, asking the court to enforce their fundamental rights and the remediation of the environmental hazards and degradations caused by the oil spillage of the 1st and 2nd respondents’ ruptured pipelines.