A Nigerian court has ordered the British government to pay £420 million to the families of 21 miners who were shot dead by the colonial authorities nearly 80 years ago.
Police opened fire on the workers, who were staging a sit-in protest against working conditions and unpaid salaries at the mine in the Iva Valley in the southeastern state of Enugu on November 18, 1949.
Fifty-one others were wounded in the shooting that fuelled growing calls for Nigerian independence, which was finally achieved in 1960.
The case was brought by Nigerian human rights activist Mazi Greg Onoh at a court in Enugu.
Judge Anthony Onovo ruled in a decision handed down on Thursday that the UK government should pay £20 million to each of the victims’ families.
The families’ lawyers, Yemi Akinseye-George, said that once they had a copy of the judgment, they would ask Nigeria’s attorney general and foreign ministry in Abuja to notify London and initiate ‘diplomatic steps toward compliance’.
‘The British authorities, despite proper service, declined to enter or respond to the court process,’ he added.
During an official investigation at the time, the police had defended the shootings by saying they feared being overwhelmed.
A statue commemorating the killing of the coal miners in Enugu in 1949
Those killed are now celebrated in the region as heroes.
In 2013, the UK agreed to pay damages to more than 5,000 Kenyans who had been victims of torture and ill-treatment during the Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s.
It expressed its ‘sincere regrets’ and paid some £20 million in compensation.
