The Government of the United Kingdom has said it is not yet officially informed about a Nigerian court’s ruling that would require it to pay £420 million in compensation to the families of coal miners killed in 1949 during British colonial rule.
Gatekeepers News reports that a spokesperson for the UK government, speaking to the BBC, said officials could not comment because no formal notification of the judgment had been received and the UK was not represented in the case.
Last Thursday, Justice Anthony Onovo of the Enugu State High Court ruled that the British government must pay £20 million to each of the 21 surviving families of miners shot dead at the Iva Valley Coal Mine in Enugu on November 18, 1949. The total £420 million award also calls for written apologies to be published in newspapers in both Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
The landmark decision described the killings as an unlawful and extrajudicial violation of the miners’ right to life during a strike for better working conditions, racial wage fairness, and unpaid back wages. The miners had staged a “go‑slow” protest after earlier efforts to call for change were ignored.
Justice Onovo said the miners were peaceful and did not engage in violence against authorities before they were shot, a view echoed in the court’s judgment that the British colonial administration was responsible for the deaths and must make reparations.
The lawsuit, filed by human rights activist Greg Onoh, named the British government, the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Nigerian government, the attorney‑general, and the head of the Commonwealth as respondents. Several of these, including the British side, did not have legal representation in court.
The 1949 Iva Valley coal miner shootings are widely seen by historians as a defining moment in Nigeria’s struggle for independence, which was achieved in 1960.
