As Nigeria secured a legal victory in the case with the foreign company Process and Industrial Developments (P&ID) on Monday, thereby saving the country billions of dollars that would otherwise have been paid as an arbitral award to the country, lawyers and experts have said the matter has exposed the damage official corruption and compromise may be doing the country.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Robert Knowles in London, it was held that the process through which P&ID secured a 2010 contract to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, was fraudulent. The High Court in London set aside the arbitration award obtained in January 2017 by P&ID, a British Virgin Islands registered company, against Nigeria. The award was originally for about $6.6 billion but had increased to about $11 billion as of the date of the court judgment because of interest.
A former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Michael Aondoakaa, who was part of the consortium of senior lawyers interfacing with Nigeria’s lawyers at the London court, while speaking on the development in an interview with Arise Television, urged the current Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi SAN, to look at other fraudulent cases filed against the country.
He said: “This fraud has been exposed and it gives us a window to look at other similar cases like Ajaokuta and the rest of them that they hurriedly went abroad, got arbitration, and are trying to enforce against Nigeria. I particularly give credit to the CBN under the then Governor, Godwin Emefiele because there was strong pressure that a settlement should be made. Our team was in the minority that we must fight till the end. There was also apprehension that if we didn’t settle and the court now gave judgment against us, that Nigeria would lose everything.”
This submission by Aondoakaa commended the CBN under the leadership of Emefiele for standing strong against Nigeria parting with billions of naira as settlement in the case while others feared that not paying such settlement could lead to unfavorable court judgments and substantial losses for the country.
Meanwhile, sources said former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo should also be commended for being instrumental to the temporary reprieve Nigeria secured at the time and should take the credit for Monday’s final judgement. Commenting on the matter, a Nigerian journalist, current chair of the editorial board of ThisDay newspapers and a former presidential spokesman to the late President Umaru Musa, Olusegun Adeniyi, wrote, ‘‘After the CBN had been made to deposit $200 million in court in 2020, Emefiele was involved in hiring fresh British lawyers to fight Nigeria’s case. I understand that to date the CBN has expended about $40 million on legal services. The late former Chief of Staff to the president, Abba Kyari and former EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu also played critical roles for Nigeria to establish a case of fraud on this transaction. But the main man on this issue is Osinbajo. In his 2020 ruling, Justice Cranston admitted that Osinbajo’s ‘fraud on the nation’ declaration in June 2018 turned the table against P&ID in Nigeria’s favour. According to Cranston, Osinbajo’s involvement began in 2017 after he was intimated by the then Attorney General of the Federation and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, SAN.’’
Also, a legal expert, Jerry Amao, disclosed that one of the major lessons from the case is that the nation must ensure that contracts entered into by the government are prepared by competent and experienced legal and other experts. He said, ‘‘The court was very critical of the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) and the obligations that Nigeria assumed under the contract. While setting aside the award, it noted that Nigeria had failed to provide the right resources for entering into such a significant contract. Another obvious lesson is that senior government officials entrusted with decision-making power must show a strong sense of responsibility and should be held accountable where they do not.
Another expert, a partner at Jenner & Block, London, James Rogers, said that however, the calls for reflection need to be considered against the several unfortunate observations regarding the performance of Nigeria and its lawyers in the underlying arbitration. According to him, ‘‘Justice Knowles observed that: ‘the case has shown examples where legal representatives did not do their work to the standard needed, where experts failed to do their work, and where politicians and civil servants failed to ensure that Nigeria as a state participated properly in the arbitration. Even without the dishonest behavior of P&ID, Nigeria was compromised.’’’
Rogers also said that Justice Knowles suggests there was an imbalance ‘in the contributions of the parties’ that lead to the form of the agreement at the center of the dispute. Inherent in these observations is the suggestion that Nigeria was, at least in part, the author of its own problems – Nigeria was compromised by its own inaction and inattention.’’
Meanwhile, the members of the House of Representatives, on Wednesday, resolved to investigate legal and other service providers involved in the case between Nigeria and Process and Industrial Development Limited. During the Wednesday plenary session of the House, Kama Nkemkanma, a member representing Ohaozara/Onicha/Ivo Federal Constituency, Ebonyi State, raised a matter of grave public importance titled, “Reversal of the $11 billion arbitration award paid against Nigeria: Call for investigation of all legal and other service providers involved in the P&ID deal.”
