Army ordered by court to pay neighbourhood watch applicants N398million as compensation

A Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, on Wednesday, ordered the Nigerian Army to pay N398m as compensation to the state Neighbourhood and Safety Corps applicants for disrupting their training and also tagging them members of a militia group in November 2018.

The 3,998 shortlisted persons, whose training was disrupted by soldiers in Nonwa in the Tai Local Government Area of the state, had approached the court and demanded N20bn in damages from the Nigerian Army.

The Court ordered the Nigerian Army to pay each of the applicants N100,000.

Defendants in the matter were the Nigerian Army, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Chief of Army Staff, and the General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Port Harcourt.
The court, presided over by Justice S. C. Amadi, declared that the disruption of the training and recruitment process by soldiers was illegal and dehumanising to the applicants.
The court also held that the army’s claim that it acted on a tip-off that the agency was illegally training a militia group was misleading as evidence before it proved that it was duly informed.

Justice Amadi ordered the defendants to pay a general sum of N100,000 as compensation to each of the applicants