The founder of the company at the centre of the $9 billion judgment debt controversy, P&ID, Michael Quinn, on Saturday, named key Nigerian government officials who played different roles in the process that led to the award of the contract.
The naming of the officials followed denials of government officials past and present of complicity in the aborted gas supply contract that resulted in the award of costs against the federal government by a British court.
It will be recalled that the United Kingdom, Business & Property Courts (the Commercial Court), presided by Justice Butcher, on August 20 granted a request for the enforcement of a March 20, 2013, award against Nigeria by a District Circuit Court in Washington DC over an alleged breach of a 2010 gas contract agreement by the company and the Nigerian government.
While the Buhari and Jonathan government continues to trade blames on who is responsible for the contract fiasco, the founder of P&ID, Michael Quinn has named two former presidents, late Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, as well as the late petroleum minister, Rilwan Lukman, as privy to the contract.
Other top government officials he named in the negotiations for the contract include former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke; former energy minister, Olatunde Odusina; former presidential adviser on petroleum, Emmanuel Egbogah; former Group Managing Director of NNPC, Shehu Ladan, as well as his counterparts between 2011 and 2012.
The then manager (Gas) of National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Labi Ajibade; the Managing Director, Addax Petroleum in 2010, Neil Hitchcock; then Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Goni Sheikh; the director (legal) of the petroleum ministry, Grace Taiga, and a representative of the ministry’s head of policy (Ibrahim).
Quinn also named the then Group General Manager/Special Technical Adviser to NNPC (General Executive Director, Power and Gas, NNPC), David Ige; representatives of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Ogwu Jones and Sunday Babalola; the then technical assistant to the petroleum minister, Taofiq Tijani; the then general manager of planning, gas and petroleum of NNPC, Uno Adeniji; then manager, gas and petroleum, NNPC (Umar); the then technical adviser to the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Nuhu Tizhe; the then assistant legal adviser to the petroleum minister, Belgore; Debo Spaine of Addax Petroleum, and Mohammed Kuchazi of P&ID.
Quinn said he met with former President Umaru Yar’Adua, along with Mr Lukman, and the then GMD of NNPC, Shehu Ladan, and 15 others over the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA).
According to him, when former President Jonathan took over, P&ID wrote to the former petroleum minister, Mrs Alison-Madueke and a former presidential adviser on petroleum, Mr Egbogah, to intimate them on the status of the gas project.
Contrary to reports that the Jonathan administration was not in the know about the contract, Quinn said following the dispute over the gas project, the decision to go for arbitration was taken with full consent of Mrs Alison-Madueke.
He said P&ID wrote to Mrs Alison-Madueke on September 19, 2012, to inform her of the nomination of Anthony Evans as P&ID’s Arbitrator in the U.S tribunal.
On November 30, 2012, he said the Nigerian government wrote to inform P&ID of the appointment of former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Bayo Ojo as its arbitrator.
It is that three-member arbitration tribunal that first found Nigeria guilty of violating the terms of the contract.
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