$9.6B Judgment: Nigeria Ex-AGF Says P&ID ‘Contract’ Didn’t Get FEC Approval

A former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Michael Aondooakaa, has said that the supposed contract of P&ID which led to the $9.6 billion judgment against the country was never debated for approval by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

A United Kingdom court, in a ruling, authorised an Irish engineering and project management company, Process and Industrial Developments Ltd. (P&ID) to seize $9.6 billion in Nigerian assets over the failed contract.

The judgment is a fallout of the contract purportedly entered into in July 2010 between the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and P&ID and the subsequent award made in July 2015 by an arbitration panel sitting in London in favour of the company.

Chief Aondooakaa, who was the country’s chief law officer in 2010 when the contract was purportedly signed, said in a telephone chat with The Nation on Thursday.

He said, “I can tell you that no such contract was brought for deliberation to the best of my knowledge “I did not see such contract and since the news broke I have been wondering how this was possible.”

He backed efforts by the Federal Government to reverse the judgment and remedy the embarrassing situation.

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Chief Aondooakaa’s position corroborated that of Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami that the contract was designed to fail ab initio.

Malami, with the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Finance Minister Hajia Zainab Ahmed; and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele, addressed a news conference on Tuesday to condemn the judgment and to assure Nigerians that the decision would be legally upturned. They also reaffirmed that the country’s assets abroad are safe.

Also on Thursday, the Federal Government denied that it did not diligently defend the case leading to the award of $9.6 billion judgment debt against it.