Musings From Abroad

Nigeria finally wins $11bn P&ID case in London

Published

1 year ago

October 23, 2023

Nigeria has gotten a victory to stop the enforcement of the $11 billion arbitration award in favour of Process & Industrial (P&ID) against Nigeria in a case marked CL-2019-000752.

The Business and Property Court in London held on Monday, in a judgement delivered by Justice Robert Knowles, that the process through which P&ID secured a 2010 contract to build a gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River State, was fraudulent.

“In the circumstances and for the reasons I have sought to describe and explain, Nigeria succeeds in its challenge under Section 68. I have not accepted all of Nigeria’s allegations. However, the awards were obtained by fraud, and the way in which they were procured was contrary to public policy.

“What happened in this case is very serious indeed, and it is important that Section 68 has been available to maintain the rule of law,” Justice Knowles said in his ruling.

Nigeria’s request for a stay on asset seizures while its legal challenge is pending was granted by the judge, but in order to maintain the stay, Nigeria must pay $200 million to the court within 60 days. Within 14 days, it must also reimburse P&ID for certain court expenses.

Nigeria and P&ID have been at odds ever since the latter claimed the former was responsible for a deal gone wrong by not supplying them with gas. When the arbitration panel ordered the country to pay P&ID with interest beginning in March 2013, the nation was left with a $6.6 billion judgement debt in 2017.

P&ID claimed that Nigeria had broken the terms of the agreement by not supplying gas for the power plant it intended to construct in the nation. Under former President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian government came to an out-of-tribunal agreement for the payment of $850 million, and it transferred the payment to President Buhari’s administration.

Buhari objected to the idea of having to pay the agreed-upon amount, revoked the settlement, and filed a challenge with the English Commercial Court to have the award enforced, but the London court increased the total to $9 billion by adding $2.4 billion in interest.

Related Topics:Featured Nigeria P&ID case

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

19 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.