Kaduna bomb victims sue FG, demand N33bn compensation

The inhabitants of Tudun Biri in Kaduna State’s Igabi Local Government Area have sued the Federal Government, claiming N33 billion for the deaths of at least 100 of their relatives.

Chronicle NG reports that the Kaduna State Government said the Nigerian Army claimed responsibility for dropping a bomb on Tudun Biri, which left no fewer than 100 villagers dead penultimate Sunday.

The inhabitants of Tudun Biri in Kaduna State’s Igabi Local Government Area have sued the Federal Government, claiming N33 billion for the deaths of at least 100 of their relatives.

On December 8, 2023, a villager named Dalhatu Salihu filed a complaint at the Federal High Court, Kaduna, on behalf of his kinsmen, through their lawyer, Mukhtar Usman, asking for the aforementioned sum as compensation.

They are also seeking that an apology be published in at least three national publications, claiming that the litigation was filed to protect the survivors’ fundamental rights.

Among the reliefs sought by the villagers is “a declaration that the act of striking dead, by way of aerial bombardment of the deceased victims herein while celebrating the Islamic Maulud at their village of Tudun Biri in Igabi Local Government Area on the 3rd day of December 2023 by the personnel under the command and supervision of the 3rd respondent (the Chief of Army Staff) amounts to a violation of the deceased victims’ fundamental rights to life as enshrined in Section 33 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and Article 10(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification Enforcement) Act (Cap 10) LFN 2010 and hence ultra vires the respondents, illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.”

No date has, however, been fixed for the hearing.