Court To Hear Closing Arguments In Eko Atlantic Dredging Legality Suit
The Federal High Court in Lagos will on May 8 hear closing arguments in a case challenging the legality of Eko Atlantic City’s dredging.
The plaintiff, Mondinvest Limited, filed the suit over eight years ago.
The suit has M. V. Breughel, Master of the M. V. Breughel and Dredging Environmental Marine Engineering N. V. (Belgium), employed by Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury, as the defendants.
Mondinvest is praying the court to declare the dredging and land reclamation in the Kuramo Waters of Victoria Island as illegal.
The area has been designated by the Chagoury brothers as the Eko Atlantic Phases II-VI.
The plaintiff, in addition to seeking damages for alleged negligent dredging and devaluation of property, is also asking for a restoration of the Kuramo Waters to its original condition under the court’s supervision.
According to the plaintiff, the environmental part of the claim is based on the paramount importance of the Kuramo Waters as a natural overflow and drain to the Atlantic Ocean of Five Cowrie Creek and Victoria Island during the rainy season and when severe flooding occurs.
The ongoing dredging operations, Mondinvest claimed, are aimed at sealing up the Kuramo Waters in a bid to create more land for the Eko Atlantic project.
The plaintiff’s claim is that the consequences of the phases of land reclamation would eradicate the efficacy of the Kuramo Waters without which Victoria Island would become prone to heavy floods and gradually go underwater.
Expert evidence from an internationally renowned oceanographer in Washington DC in the United States of America (U.S.A) had been adduced to in the suit to the effect that the Kuramo Waters has existed as a natural body of water serving Victoria Island as long as Lagos has existed.
The plaintiff argued that the consequences of the ongoing dredging, which has been intensified by the Belgian dredger owners since June 2023 to date, is to destroy property values, investments, and livelihoods of citizens along the Kuramo waters shoreline and beyond.
The claimant is seeking damages for negligent, unlawful and illegal dredging by the defendants.
At the resumed hearing on February 20, the plaintiff’s counsel, Olumide Aju (SAN), concluded his cross-examination of the defence expert witness, Prof. Lucian Chukwu.
Justice Daniel Osiagor adjourned till May 8 for the closing arguments.
The case was previously before Justice Jude Dagat, who, in a judgment in March 2016, refused an application by the dredger owners to dismiss the suit.
He held that Mondinvest Limited had a good cause of action against the dredger owners
