Lagos. A Nigerian court has ordered the British government to pay £420 million ($570 million) to the families of 21 miners killed at the hands of colonial authorities almost 80 years ago, their lawyer told AFP on Friday.
On November 18, 1949, police opened fire on workers who were staging a sit-in protest against working conditions and unpaid wages at the Iva Valley mine in Enugu state (southeast).
Another 51 people were wounded in the shooting, fueling growing calls for Nigeria’s independence, achieved in 1960.
Nigerian human rights activist Mazi Greg Ono brought the case before an Enugu court.
Judge Anthony Onovo ruled in a ruling on Thursday that the British government must pay £20 million each to the victims’ families.
The families’ lawyer, Yemi Akinseye-George, told AFP that, once they have a copy of the sentence, they will ask the attorney general and the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to notify London and initiate “diplomatic procedures for its compliance.”
The British authorities refused to appear at the trial, “despite due notification,” the lawyer added.
In 2013 the United Kingdom agreed to compensate more than five thousand Kenyans who had been victims of torture and ill-treatment during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s.
