Nigeria Could Have Lost One-Third of Its Foreign Reserves in P&ID Case, Says Buhari

Former President Muhammadu Buhari has responded to Nigeria’s recent victory in the $11 billion Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) arbitration award dispute, calling it an “attempted heist of historic proportions” against the country, as it sought to steal “one-third of the nation’s foreign reserves.”

In an article titled ‘A Matter of Principle,’ Buhari expressed his relief at the judgment delivered by Justice Robin Knowles of the Commercial Courts of England and Wales, who upheld Nigeria’s appeal that the award was obtained through fraud.

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.”

InfoStride News reported that a Business and Property Court in London halted the enforcement of the $11 billion arbitration award in favor of P&ID against Nigeria in a case marked CL-2019-000752.

In a verdict issued by Justice Robert Knowles, it was determined that the method by which P&ID acquired a 2010 contract for the construction of a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, involved fraudulent actions and bribery.

Reacting to this, Buhari said, “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.”

Buhari recounted the experience of how he tasked the former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to find a way out of the issue. He noted that he knew the country needed a huge amount of evidence to get a fair hearing.

“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 the 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.”

The former president emphasized the importance of following the legal process in resolving disputes and highlighted the significance of allowing each side to present their case in the temple of justice. He concluded, “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.”

Background:

In a previous report by InfoStride News, the Business and Property Court in London ruled in favor of Nigeria in a $11 billion suit between the federal government of Nigeria and Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) Ltd.

The judgment was delivered by Judge Robin Knowles.

In 2010, Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) secured a 20-year contract to build and operate a gas processing facility in the southern region of Nigeria.

P&ID entered into the agreement with Nigeria to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River state, but the company said the deal collapsed because the Nigerian government did not fulfill its end of the bargain.

The federal government, on its part, contended that the project’s initiation was marred by a widespread bribery scheme.