Zungeru Dam: Displaced Communities Complain About Poor Compensation

The multi-billion naira Zungeru Dam project, nearing completion in Niger State, is already attracting negative reactions from the host communities and those displaced from their ancestral homes, leading to a petition being written to both the federal and Niger State governments on the issue.

One of the complaints of those displaced is that they have not been adequately compensated for the loss of their land, economic trees and other valuable items and where compensation was made the beneÀciaries were “shortchanged.”

Another issue raised by the communities in the petition authored by the Coordinators of the Concerned Shiroro Youths, Comrades Abdullahi

Yussuf Kokki and Bello Ibrahim presented to journalists in Minna recently, was that people around the dam were already witnessing the negative eͿect of the multibillion naira project.

“Unfortunately, many intricacies and inadequacies have been occasioned by monumental scam arising from crass negligence and complacency from the combined conspiracy of the handlers of the project on one hand and the aͿected communities’ representatives on the other hand even before the completion of the gigantic power plant,” the group stated in the petition.

“In respect of compensation, a monumental and catastrophic scam took centre-stage by way of shortchanging virtually all people directly aͿected by the dam construction.