October 30, (THEWILL) – The immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari, has described the attempt by an Irish firm, Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) in dragging Nigeria to court over a contract not implemented as an attempted heist of historic proportions.
According to the former President, Nigeria would have paid $15 billion if it had lost the case against P&ID.
The former President spoke in response to the judgment of the Property Courts of England and Wales, which on Monday, October 23, voided the $11 billion arbitration order on Nigeria.
A private arbitration tribunal had on January 31, 2017, ordered Nigeria to pay an Irish firm, Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) $6.6 billion as damages accruing from March 20, 2013, with interest at a rate of seven per cent, which amounts to nearly $11 billion.
The award was in claim of damages by P&ID OF in a failed gas processing facility contract.
Reacting to the matter, Buhari recalled how he asked his former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and erstwhile Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to “get us a fair hearing.”
THEWILL had earlier reported how Godwin Emefiele, a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), swayed former President Buhari from paying the $11 billion arbitration award.
Speaking on the matter on Arse Television breakfast show on Saturday, a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Michael Aondoakaa, revealed how Emefiele convinced former President Buhari that the P&ID contract was fraudulent and advised Nigeria to hire competent lawyers to argue her case.
Aondoakaa added that it was the assurances of Emefiele that former President Buhari refused payment and rather encouraged litigation, which paid off on Monday, at the London court.
Speaking on Monday’s judgement in an article released on Sunday, titled, ‘A Matter of Principle’, Buhari expressed his relief at the judgment delivered by Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, who upheld Nigeria’s appeal that the award was obtained through fraud.
The former President described the action of the P&ID in dragging Nigeria to court over a contract not implemented as an attempted heist of historic proportions.
“This was an attempted heist of historic proportions, an attempt to steal from the treasury a third of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
“But ordinary Nigerians never took the decisions that ended up before Justice Knowles. Had Nigeria lost, it would have required schools not to be built, nurses not to be trained and roads not to be repaired, on an epic scale, to pay a handful of contractors, lawyers and their allies – for a project that never broke ground.
“Rarely in modern times can so few have tried to take so much from so many. If Nigeria had lost its arbitration dispute with Process & Industrial Development in a London court on 23 October, it would have cost our people close to USD 15 billion.
“We won, and all decent people can sleep easier as a result. Justice Robin Knowles said Nigeria had been the victim of a monstrous fraud. But it was a close-run thing.
“The ‘P&ID Affair’ was already firmly set by the time I came into office in 2015. A company registered in the British Virgin Islands that no one had heard of, with hardly any staff or assets, had won a contract to build a gas processing plant in Cross Rivers. The company was owned by Irish intermediaries who knew Nigeria well and had done business in everything from healthcare to fixing tanks,” he said.
Recounting the experience of how he tasked the former Chief-of-Staff, Abba Kyari, and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to find a way out of the issue, Buhari said that he knew the country needed a huge amount of evidence in order to get a fair hearing.
“It was clear that far from the whole story had been told. I tasked Abba Kyari, my chief-of-staff and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, with finding a way, even at that late stage and despite so much conflicting advice, to get us a fair hearing.
“Working with a number of different agencies and senior officials of government, we began to find a huge amount of evidence, not all of which Justice Knowles was to accept. But he agreed that P&ID had paid bribes. He agreed that one of P&ID’s founders had committed perjury. And he agreed that P&ID had somehow found in its possession a steady supply of Nigeria’s privileged internal legal documents, outlining our plans, strategies and problems.
“My own view is that this whole sorry affair shows how important it is to follow the legal process in resolving a dispute. It shows that given time and opportunity for each side to present their case, the temple of justice can satisfactorily resolve all disputes without resorting to extrajudicial measures. It was definitely worth the struggle: this was an attempted heist of historic proportions, an attempt to steal from the treasury a third of Nigeria’s foreign reserves,” the former President noted.
