The people of Aggah community in Igba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area of Rivers State have dragged a multinational oil firm, ENI, to the Italia Supreme Court for causing flood in the community and neighbouring communities.
The action of the community followed a judgement by the Italian Appeal Court, sitting in Milan, which struck out their suit seeking for the remediation of their environment following the activities of Nigerian Agip Oil’ Company (NAOC), a subsidiary of ENI.
The community had accused the multinational oil company of causing flooding in the area following the fencing of oil well heads in the community.
Speaking during a media engagement in Port Harcourt yesterday, counsel to Aggah community, Luca Saltalamcchia, described the judgement of the Milan Appeal Court as hypocrisy.
Saltalamcchia insisted that the Appeal Court judge who passed tbc judgement used artificial intelligence (AI) to ruled on the matter.
“This hypocrisy was rewarded by the Court in Milan. The ruling is strange.
We asked experts if the judge used AI and the answer was yes.
“The decision of the judge is to tell the world not to come to Italy to seek for such matters. Italian people do not pay much attention to issues of environmental degradation.”
Also speaking, spokesman of Aggah community, Pastor Evaristus Nicholas, said the community started experiencing flooding shortly after ENI and NAOC fence their oil well heads.
“Aggah community had been living with flood for over 50 years. The flood started after ENI and it’s subsidiaries started fencing their well heads in had community. We are not complaining about oil spill, but we are complaining about flood,” he said.
