Aggah Community in Rivers State reignites its fight against International Oil Companies including Eni, Oando in a Milan, Italy Court over decades of flooding it believes must have been caused by the activities of the oil firms
By Edu Abade
In their quest for justice and remediation of their severely impacted community, the Egbema Voice of Freedom (EVF), Advocates for Community Alternatives (ACA) and Aggah Community have filed an appeal against the April 9, 2026 ruling of the Ordinary Court of Milan in their case against Eni S.p.A. and Oando Energy Resources Nigeria Limited formerly known as the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC).
The lawsuit challenged the companies’ failure to resolve chronic flooding in the Aggah Community in Rivers State, despite commitments made under a 2019 Terms of Settlement (ToS) facilitated by Italy’s Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) National Contact Point.
In the litigation, a community activist, Pastor Nicholas Evaristus Ukaonu, pointed out that Aggah people are of the Egbema ethnic nationality, whose land could be found in the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State, saying the people of Aggah depend largely on subsistence farming and fishing for their livelihoods.
Italian energy giant Eni S.p.A. has drilled for oil in and around the town of Aggah which borders and overlaps the Mgbede oil field since the 1960s. In the early 1970s, a subsidiary of Eni known as Nigerian Agip Oil Company Ltd. (NAOC) created three 40,000 ft2 earthen embankments in three locations on the Mgbede oil field to support wellheads and built raised access roads to connect them. These constructions block the natural streams that used to flow through Aggah, and no adequate drainage channel exists. As a result, the streams back up, and extreme flooding covers Aggah’s farmlands and residential areas every year, typically during the rainy season between July and September.
Several people have drowned in the floodwaters over the years. Floods also destroy sewage systems, resulting in vast pollution and harm to the ecosystem. During the course of this litigation, Eni sold NAOC to Oando, a Nigerian oil company, which changed NAOC’s name to Oando Energy Resources Limited.
The appellants, who spoke at a media briefing on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, said they were challenging the April 9, 2026 judgment issued at a Milan High Court, arguing that it failed to adequately address the continuing environmental, social, and economic impacts of flooding in the Rivers community.
A statement issued by Emyloia Kpadonou maintained that the people of Aggah, an Egbema Community whose livelihoods depend largely on farming and fishing, have endured annual flooding for decades adding that the flooding is allegedly linked to embankments and raised access roads constructed in the Mgbede Oil Field by NAOC in the early 1970s, which obstruct the natural flow of streams through the area.
While the Milan court affirmed its jurisdiction to hear cases involving the overseas activities of Italian parent companies, it dismissed the claims for further remediation and compensation to the Rivers community. The court held that Eni and NAOC had fulfilled their obligations under a 2019 Terms of Settlement by constructing drainage channels and carrying out feasibility studies, even though flooding persists in the community.
The statement faulted the ruling, arguing that it focused on whether infrastructure was built rather than whether it effectively solved the flooding problem.
Evidence presented before the court, according to the appellants, include the Final Flood Aggah Community Report, internal company documents, findings from the Rivers State Ministry of Environment, and a Nigerian civil judgment. The evidence allegedly showed that access roads connected to oil wells obstruct natural water flow and worsen flooding across the community.
Community member Evangelist Ubas was quoted as saying: “By focusing on whether infrastructure was built rather than whether it actually solved the flooding, the Court adopted an approach disconnected from the realities faced by the people of Aggah.
“A settlement cannot be considered fulfilled when families remain underwater, livelihoods are destroyed, and environmental harm continues unabated.”
The court also ruled that EVF lacked standing to pursue damages claims on behalf of affected residents and ordered the claimants to pay more than €180,000 in legal costs.
Speaking at a virtual media briefing moderated by the Executive Director of Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), Philip Jakpor titled ‘Justice for Aggah People’ on Tuesday, June 2, 2026, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Luca Saltalamacchia, said the judgment contradicted evidence presented during the trial and departed from the court’s earlier position.
“When we launched the suit, we had a very strong narrative and very strong evidence. In fact, at the beginning of the trial, the judge put forward a settlement proposal asking NAOC-Eni to close the litigation and recognize some compensation to the plaintiffs,” Saltalamacchia said.
According to him, the final judgment appeared to adopt the defendants’ arguments while overlooking key evidence presented by the claimants.
“The judge copied in the ruling the narrative of Eni without taking into consideration all the evidence that we submitted,” he claimed.
In one of the most striking claims made at the briefing, Saltalamacchia disclosed that his legal team, in an expert review, found out that artificial intelligence may have been used in drafting the judgment.
“Important passages of the process, including the settlement proposal, were not mentioned,” he said, claiming that an expert reportedly found a “high possibility” that AI had been used in preparing the ruling.
The lawyer said the findings would form part of the grounds of appeal just as Saltalamacchia further described the legal costs awarded against the claimants as punitive, adding, “I have never seen in my 30 years of experience as a lawyer in this field such a big condemnation of plaintiffs to pay counterpart fees in such a large amount of money,” he said.
Reacting to the judgment, Ukaonu argued that Eni’s internal documents revealed the flooding problem decades ago, saying, “In 2024 and 2025, Eni was still building culverts. If it didn’t solve the problem in 1988 and didn’t solve the problem in 1992, would it solve the problem in 2024 and 2025? The answer is no.
“How can you ask the oppressed to pay the oppressor such an amount of money? Yet we are flooded. Now, the judge is giving us costs, asking the community who is oppressed, who is flooded as a result of the facilities built by these multinationals, you are asking us to pay 160,000 euros.
“If you add tax and some other calculations, it will amount to 200,000 euros. Do the mathematics, that’s close to 200 to 300 million naira. How can you ask the oppressed to pay the oppressor such an amount of money?” He asked.
Speaking, Executive Director of Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Barrister Chima Williams, traced the origin of the dispute to a complaint filed through the OECD National Contact Point mechanism rather than through the courts.
Williams explained that the complaint became the first successful OECD complaint mechanism from Nigeria and resulted in a Terms of Settlement requiring drainage channels, bridges and culverts to restore the natural flow of water from Aggah into the Orashi River.
However, disagreements emerged when the companies maintained they had fulfilled their obligations, while the community argued that the flooding remained unresolved.
“Our complaint was not that you didn’t build drainages or culverts,” Williams said. “Our complaint was that the water is not flowing out of the community the way it naturally used to flow, so you have not satisfied the terms of settlement.”
Williams described the litigation as one of the first known attempts by an African community to seek judicial enforcement of a settlement reached through the OECD complaint mechanism.
The appellants said the appeal seeks a broader interpretation of corporate responsibility and argues that environmental remediation efforts should be assessed by their effectiveness in resolving harm rather than by the completion of technical measures alone.
They maintained that residents of Aggah continue to face recurring floods, unsafe water conditions, destruction of farmland, and economic displacement, and vowed to continue pursuing what they described as a permanent and effective solution to the community’s flooding crisis.
While the Milan Court confirmed its jurisdiction to hear cases involving the overseas activities of Italian parent companies, it dismissed the communities’ claims for further remediation and compensation. The ruling leaves residents of Aggah facing continuing environmental devastation, including recurring floods, destruction of farmland, polluted water sources, and severe health risks.
The case focused on the failure of the defendants to resolve perennial flooding caused by oil infrastructure, despite a 2019 “Terms of Settlement” (ToS) mediated between the parties in Italy. The Court’s decision rested on several controversial grounds:
On the Technical Compliance versus Real-World Results, the Judge ruled that ENI and NAOC fulfilled their contractual obligations simply by constructing 14 drainage channels and conducting feasibility studies. The Court stated that the 2019 agreement did not create a ‘guarantee’ to eliminate flooding, but only an obligation to perform the specific works listed.
The Court declared the claims for damages inadmissible on “standing” grounds, arguing that the EVF could neither claim on behalf of its membership of almost 1,900affected residents, nor on its own behalf as a mission-driven organization.
Financial Penalty for Justice: In a move that threatens to stifle future corporate accountability efforts, the Court ordered the claimants to pay over €180,000 in legal costs.
Evidence submitted before the Court, including the Final Flood Aggah Community Report, demonstrates that the flooding crisis is directly linked to oil infrastructure in the area. The report – in addition to internal company documents, a Nigerian civil judgment against Eni’s subsidiary, and the findings of the Rivers State Ministry of Environment – determined that access roads connected to Wells 11, 18, and 20 obstruct the natural flow of water and function effectively as dams, worsening flooding across the community.
By finding that EVF had no right to assert claims for flood damage, the court avoided considering this overwhelming proof.
The court also ignored extensive evidence that the channels NAOC built were not functional and had not been designed to channel water away from the community.
A resident, Evangelist Ubas, said, “By focusing on whether infrastructure was built rather than whether it actually solved the flooding, the Court adopted an approach disconnected from the realities faced by the people of Aggah. A settlement cannot be considered fulfilled when families remain underwater, livelihoods are destroyed and environmental harm continues unabated for the affected residents.”
