Former President Muhammadu Buhari, on Sunday, said the country would have paid $15 billion if it had lost the case against the international firm, Process & Industrial Development Limited.

He lamented that such monetary loss could be substituted to finance key infrastructural projects, among others.

It was reported that, following a 2010 agreement between P$ID and the Federal Government, the firm pledged to build a gas processing plant in Nigeria.

However, the project never materialised, leading P&ID to sue for lost profits. The firm was granted the sizable award plus accumulated interest, which became a point of contention.

In a ruling on Monday, October 23, Justice Robert Knowles of the Business and Property Court in London held that the process through which P&ID secured the contract was fraudulent.

Reacting to the matter, Buhari recalled that during his administration in 2015, he asked his former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and erstwhile Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to “get us a fair hearing.”

He noted that the firm, owned by Irish intermediaries who understood the systematics of the Nigerian market, won the contract to build a gas processing plant in Cross Rivers State.

In a series of tweets shared via his profile on X (formerly Twitter), Buhari wrote, “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 $15 bn.

“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.”

However, according to him, the administration of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, could not supply the gas and consequently, the plant was not built.

He noted that, “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.

“The previous government could not supply the gas. The plant was never built. Construction was not started. P&ID did not even buy the land for the facility. But the contract, incredibly, was clear: P&ID could sue Nigeria, and claim all the profits it might have made over 20 years as if everything had been completed.”

Buhari continued, “Nigeria was in court in London, trying to talk down liability and costs. Back at home, fixers were looking to work out a quiet settlement. This is often the way. A lot of contracts end up in dispute. P&ID won a settlement in 2017 of USD6 billion, with compound interest. People, including out-of-work ex-British Cabinet Minister Priti Patel, were queuing up to insist we paid, or risk Nigeria becoming an untrustworthy trade pariah.

“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,: he said.

The former military-turned-democratic leader stated that it’s imperative to follow legal processes when settling disputes, adding that time and opportunities to present arguments are required.

He also noted that Nigeria needs better contracts with transparency in both the public and private sectors.

The tweet read in parts, “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.

“But even at this moment, we should note what the English judge cautioned. The arbitration process in London “was a shell that got nowhere near the truth.” We need better contracts, in the public and private sectors. And we need greater transparency. The reality is that had P&ID not conjured up quite such an outlandish ransom, they may have found themselves in the same place as the myriad of other invisible contractors who all too often quietly take Nigeria for many millions in out-of-court settlements. Sterner sanctions are indicated for Nigerian public officials who have been proven to connive with foreign criminals to defraud our country.

“Nigeria has won this battle with corruption, but the war is far from over. As Justice Knowles concluded that, “This case has also, sadly, brought together a combination of examples of what some individuals will do for money. Driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; giving no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm for others. Others that in the present case include the people of Nigeria, already let down in so many ways over the history of this matter by a number of individuals in politics and administration whose duty it was to serve them and protect them,” he said. (The PUNCH)

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