The long-drawn battle by the management of Ogba Zoological Garden and Nature Park, Benin City, Edo State, Everal Services Limited, franchisee of the Zoo, which is one of Nigeria’s oldest nature parks, for the enforcement of a 2016 arbitral award, upon which the continued existence of the tourist attraction is hinged, continues as a High Court in Benin City has adjourned proceedings to October 26, 2026.

The case was adjourned by the judge hearg it over the absence of counsel representing Edo State government.

The lead counsel to Everal Services Limited, Kingsley O. Obamogie (SAN), disclosed that the company is seeking to enforce a 2016 arbitral award in favour of the management of the Zoo.

According to him, on November 3, 2016, a sole arbitrator awarded N36.5 million in damages to the company for breach of its lease agreement and issued directives to protect the zoo. The award, he stressed ordered the Edo State Government to secure Ogba Zoological Garden from encroachment, including building a perimeter fence.

He alleged that successive administrations, especially the immediate past government of former Governor Godwin Obaseki, failed to implement the directives, despite the ecological importance of the Zoo as the foremost heritage centre and tourist attraction of the state.

He said both parties had explored an out-of-court settlement, which lasted for five years but failed to achieve a settlement. A situation, which he said necessitated the company going back to the court to enforce the binding award.

However, a worrisome development for Nigeria, as the case lingers, with no settlement in sight, and the Zoo operating under precarious situation, is the disclosure by legal, and environmental experts as well as Civil Society Organisatations that this could affect the country’s accessing climate grants from the Green Climate Fund and World Bank.

They also noted that the continued encroachment on the Zoo’s land violates the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, and may constitute an environmental crime.

According to the latest development, the Zoo’s land is fast being encroached upon and depleted; as of the 53 square kilome- tres that constituted the original Ogba For- est Reserve, what is now left is said to be less than half a kilometre within the Zoo.