Sir: Even as President Buhari was at the United Nations General Assembly denouncing as a scam, the Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) contract with the government, which has resulted in the humongous award of $9.6 billion against Nigeria by a London commercial court, his ministers and other top government officials led by Attorney General, Abubakar Malami were in London, ostensibly in an effort to vacate the judgment. Even as the commercial court in London has granted a stay of execution of the earlier judgment, it also slapped a bill of $200 million (N72.2b) that Nigeria must deposit in the court within 60 days for the stay of execution to take effect.
Malami who led the delegation enthused that “I am happy with today’s development in the court and see this as a positive resolution that constitutes an important step in the government effort to defend itself in a fair and just process.”
Why would Malami be excited or “happy”, that a judgment entered in favour of a group that should have been on the run, cost of $200 million to vacate its execution?
It appears, a section of Nigerian governing elite have discovered a honey pot for which they are desperate to scoop to its last residue. It is becoming very clear and apparent that P&ID may actually be working in cohort with those who claim to be sweating to overturn the judgment. In its latest outburst, the “international criminal group” as President Buhari called them, has found their voice. According to its statement recently, “the court has ruled that Nigeria government must put $200 million to maintain a stay of execution whilst it pursues an appeal against enforcement of the now 9.6 billion awards in favour of P&ID.”
The phantom company with no known pedigree of project execution anywhere in the world and whose Irish founder was ensnared in many shadowy deals would also taunt that “Nigeria government will now have to put its money where its mouth is if it wants to avoid immediate seizure of assets,” adding with a good amount of scorn that, “ government’s recent media exercise to allege fraud against P&ID turned out to be red-herring.”
The hunter has become the hunted. President Buhari’s constructive message to the world through the UN platform that Nigeria is under siege by a criminal gang was comprehensively flagged down by P&ID as “red-herring.”
If it is not, why are the Buhari men roaming the U.K whose learned judges should have known that extra-territorial judgment infringing on other nations sovereign and territorial integrity has enormous diplomatic costs especially at a time of London political winter, when Brexit confusion is mauling its political establishment?
If the P&ID is a scam and a London court sought to glamourize it by issuing a judgment in its favour, do we need to further deodorize the crime by appealing a judgment or, we muscularly invoke our sovereign prerogatives to denounce the judgment as blatant interference in our internal affairs especially when it has to do with a criminal group wanting to cheat Nigeria billions of dollars?
Instead of the rigmaroles in the London court, why would not the government activate the diplomatic machinery to put the British government on notice, that a key institution of her domestic national process is putting bilateral cooperation between the two countries in jeopardy?
Hiring legal teams both local and international, with over-bloated expense in travels and fees would be the lifeblood that would ensure that the P&ID affair will never go away, any time soon. At the end of these epic rigmaroles, negotiations with the P&ID, when all concerned would have agreed on cuts and percentages will be the ultimate deal maker and the final outcome. Our National Assembly, smelling the tantalizing honey pot are already asking to be brought on board.
President Buhari, a staunch anti-corruption crusader with impeccable integrity will soon understand that corruption has many faces and some might actually look like those around him.
- Charles Onunaiju, Utako Abuja.