In response to Nigeria’s recent victory in the $11 billion Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) arbitration award dispute, former President Muhammadu Buhari called it an “attempted heist of historic proportions” against the nation, attempting to pilfer “one-third of the nation’s foreign reserves.”
Buhari expressed his relief at Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales’ ruling, which affirmed Nigeria’s appeal that the award was gained by fraud, in an article published on Sunday under the headline “A Matter of Principle.”
The former president emphasized the gravity of the situation, stating, “This was an attempted heist of historic proportions, an attempt to steal from the treasury a third of Nigeria’s foreign reserves”.
In a ruling rendered by Justice Robert Knowles, it was concluded that P&ID had engaged in bribery and fraudulent activity to get a 2010 contract for building a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State.
Buhari’s reaction
“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 USD 15 billion.
“We won, and all decent people can sleep easier as a result. Justice Robin Knowles said Nigeria had been the victim of a monstrous fraud. But it was a close-run thing.
“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.
“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.”
Recalling the incident in which he sent former Chief of Staff Abba Kyari and Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami to resolve the matter, Buhari stated that he was aware that the nation would require a substantial quantity of proof to secure a just trial.
“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.
“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,” the former president noted.
The Business and Property Court in London ruled in favour of Nigeria in a $11 billion suit between the federal government of Nigeria and Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Ltd.
Judge Robin Knowles delivered the ruling.
In the southern part of Nigeria, Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) was awarded a 20-year contract in 2010 to construct and run a gas processing complex.
In order to construct a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River state, P&ID entered into an agreement with Nigeria. However, the business claimed that the contract fell through because the Nigerian government failed to uphold its half of the bargain.
On its part, the federal government argued that a large-scale bribery conspiracy tainted the project’s beginning.
