“The right to property shall be guaranteed. It may only be encroached upon in the interest of public need or in the general interest of the community and in accordance with the provisions of appropriate laws.” The Applicants alleged that several of their properties were destroyed or completely burnt down, this was uncontroverted by the Respondent and reinforced in the findings in Exhibit 26 page 19 paragraph 16 as follows: “16 (i) The damage was widespread involving places of worship (churches and Mosques), residential properties, business premises and public buildings (including government and security premises) as well as hamlets of nomadic Fulanis called ragas (especially in Kaduna State). 16 (ii) Puts the aggregate losses/damaged and claims for Kaduna State as N23, 330,737,540.00. 107. Additionally, the valuation by the Respondent of the damaged properties is further indicative of admission of the Applicants’ allegation of such destruction in the said communities. The Respondent has not put up any justifiable defence to the widespread destruction of the said communities other than as earlier contended that its agents were not implicated in said destruction. As held above, the court comes to the inevitable conclusion that since the allegation of destruction of properties which the Respondent itself described as ‘widespread’ has been admitted, they remain uncontroverted and need no further proof. The Court relying on its reasoning above comes to the same conclusion that the Respondent cannot be exonerated from liability based on the contention that the perpetrators are non-state actor. The Court therefore holds the Respondent in violation of its obligation to protect the property of the Applicants. 108. Allegation of Late deployment of security agents 109. As regards the allegation that the Respondent failed to deploy security agents in a timely manner to minimise the casualties of dead and injured as well as the loss of properties, it is the contention of the Applicants that the Police failed to respond timeously to distress calls on the onset of the crisis. It exhibited several Police stations and their distance to the various hotspot (annexure A). From the chronicle, the farthest point to a Police Station is 2 hours by road; but the security officers arrived after several hours when many had been killed and several properties destroyed. The tardiness of the Respondent response is confirmed in the report of the panel of investigation set up by the Kaduna State where it was reported at page 138 paragraph 5.6.1 of exhibit 27 as follows: 30