The Federal Government will head to court to challenge the $9.6bn slammed on Nigeria by a UK court in favour of a British engineering firm, Process & Industrial Development Limited (P&ID), over a gas deal violation, once it is able to establish some element of fraud in that deal.
The Federal Government had announced that it would appeal the judgment, but is now exploring options, including asking the court to set aside the deal, because outcomes of investigations so far already point to some pre-determined plans to defraud the country before the contract was even made.
Already, there is an extensive investigation on everyone that played a role in the failed contract to establish where there was a criminal conspiracy, Abubakar Malami, minister for justice and attorney-general of the federation, told a press meeting on Sunday.
President Buhari had directed Malami to mandate the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to conduct a thorough investigation into the company, the circumstances surrounding the agreement and the subsequent event, which includes commencing a full-scale criminal investigation.
“There is indeed investigation being intensively and extensively carried out by agencies of government and it is wholehearted, borderless, and there are no limitations as to who and who can be invited for questioning or not,” Malami stated while addressing the press.
He was not specific on personalities being investigated but stated “categorically that those that were involved in the process of drafting the agreement, signing and executing, conduct of arbitration before the arbitral panel, in the conduct of trial before the Federal High Court relating to a subsequent case that was filed and all other personalities of interest, local and international, are indeed being investigated to get to the bottom of what indeed transpired for the purpose of establishing the existence or otherwise of fraud and fraudulent conspiracies between or among the parties”.
He said it was clear from all indications that the so-called contract was a well-organised scam consciously, deliberately and intentionally orchestrated by some dubious and well-placed Nigerian government officials at the time with some shrewd foreign collaborators to defraud Nigeria and inflict heavy economic and financial loss on Nigeria and its people.
“And for your information and legally speaking, fraud could be a ground for setting aside an award without necessarily having to go through the process of seeking for leave,” he said.
Speaking on whether there was even a window which the Buhari administration could have explored to negotiate before things got out of hand, Malami said as at the time the present government came in, the time for a possible appeal or even to get the deal set aside had already elapsed.
Onyinye Nwachukwu, Abuja
