° Reaches out to Irish, UK security agencies for assistance

° Beams searchlight on Irish bank over $20,000 transfer to former Petroleum Ministry director

° Legal battle to quash firm’s $9.6bn claim begins thursday in London

Yemi Ajayi with agency report



Nigeria has launched a bid for the extradition of the co-founder of an Irish firm, Process & Industrial Developments, Mr. Brendan Cahill and son of the founder, Mr. Adam Quinn, over their roles in the $9.6 billion arbitral award arising from a failed gas project that has pitted the company against the federal government.

Nigeria is seeking the help of Irish law enforcement and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency, for the extradition of Cahill and Quinn to face trial in the country, according to a report wednesday by the online edition of THE IRISH TIMES.

Besides, Nigeria is also seeking a probe of Allied Irish Banks, with a claim that it has evidence of two bank transfers by P&ID, amounting to $20,000, to a former Director, Legal Services of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Grace Taiga.

Taiga is currently on trial for allegedly conniving with the company in a bid to defraud the country.
Both parties to the Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA), under which Nigeria is to supply wet gas to a plant to be built in Cross River State by P&ID for processing to generate electricity, are locked in a legal battle over Nigeria’s alleged default for which the company got a $6.5 billion arbitral award, which has now ballooned to $9.6 billion due to interest, for loss of future earnings from the project.

President Muhammed Buhari, in his speech at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday in New York, described the $9.6 billion arbitral claim as fraudulent.

A British commercial court had on August 16 affirmed P&ID’s right to seize $9.6 billion in Nigerian assets to recoup the arbitral award.

The legal battle resumes today in London where Nigeria is set for a spirited combat to stop the British court from finally granting P&ID’s request to seize its assets, which amount to about 20 per cent of its foreign reserves.

Ahead of Thursday’s court session, a federal government delegation, comprising the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami; Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu; Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele and Acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu, arrived in London on Saturday in preparations for the case.

THE IRISH TIMES quoted Magu as telling Bloomberg in an interview on Tuesday as saying that the anti-corruption agency was extending its investigation into the failed gas project by formally requesting the assistance of Irish law enforcement and the UK’s National Crime Agency.

So far, the EFCC, which at the behest of President Muhammadu Buhari is probing the botched deal along with other security agencies in Nigeria, has interrogated a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore and two senior lawyers for their alleged connection with the arbitral award.

In addition to Taiga, who was granted bail wednesday, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, had last week convicted P&ID affiliate, P&ID Nigeria Limited, on charges of fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and other sundry offences.

The court also ordered the company to forfeit all its assets to the federal government and to wind up operations in the country.

Malami, in an earlier interview with Bloomberg, had said Nigeria would use the conviction of P&ID local affiliate as a defence to support government’s allegation that the GSPA was a scam targeted at Nigeria.

“The enforcement of the $9 billion cannot stand having been based on a foundation that is rooted in fraud, corruption, tax evasion and procedural circumvention,” Malami had said.

Prosecutors said they had evidence of the bank transfers by Dublin-based Industrial Consultants (International) Ltd. — part of the P&ID group of companies — to Taiga who supervised the GSPA.
The payments, in 2017 and 2018, were made from an Industrial Consultants account at Allied Irish Banks and were purportedly for “medical costs,” Bala Sanga, the lead prosecutor, said in the interview.

Paddy McDonnell, a spokesman for the Irish bank, declined comment, saying official policy forbids speaking on individual accounts.
A spokesperson for P&ID also did not respond to a request for comment on the latest allegations.

However, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Taiga’s lawyer, denied the bribery allegation against his client, saying: “How could there have been a bribe to facilitate the contract that was done in 2010 and now get paid in 2018 or 2017? It just doesn’t add up.”

The payments, along with Taiga’s email records, showed a “longstanding relationship” between the government official and P&ID founder, Michael Quinn, who died in 2015, and Cahill, Sanga said.

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/09/26/nigeria-seeks-extradition-of-pid-founders-son-co-founder-for-trial/

Wow. Today is my first day on NL and i made FTC too? This is a sign of victory for me.

I dedicate this plot of land to my ex, who broke my heart, left me depressed and turned me to social network addict. Make God reward you in your own coins. Amen

Mek dem execute the trial nah.

Well please visit our new website https://lifestyles.ng

This will never happen

Get your children educational android tablets @ N20,000 with free delivery nationwide. Go through my threads for pictures and please check my signature for contact

Is this government for real?☹

The one's you arrested and charge to court, court is releasing them and you looking who they will extradite for your one sided prosecution... Ndi ala

We will be waiting for the final outcome in this.

It is gonna be a long battle.

Rafiq2:
The hatred some people have for this country eh....even the devil does not hate Nigeria to this extent. See them rejoicing & hoping for Yahoo company like PI D to win billions of dollars worth of free money.


Well, let me break it to you, if that money commot for Naija even you guys go suffer am, as nobody go buy ur over priced spare parts or ur low quality imported products from China

It is always good and refreshing to know that we still have reasonable people like you on this forum.

The hatred they have for this nation will consume them in little time.
They can never escape it.

God bless you.
God bless Nigeria.

The only thing that will surprise me in this country is when you tell me MC Oloumo is not a Chelsea fan.

StrikeBack:
This will never happen

Barawo bubu will use his old method that failed again then

The foiled Nigerian kidnap plot




The drugged ex-minister was put in a crate and taken to an airport where a plane was waiting


In London in 1984, a team of Nigerians and Israelis attempted to kidnap and repatriate the exiled former Nigerian minister Umaru Dikko. Mr Dikko, who had fled Nigeria after a military coup, was accused of stealing $1bn (£625m) of government money.

The plot was foiled by a young British customs officer, Charles David Morrow, who has now told the BBC World Service Witness programme what happened.

On a summer's day, Mr Dikko walked out of his front door in an upmarket neighbourhood of Bayswater in London. Within seconds he had been grabbed by two men and bundled into the back of a transit van.

"I remember the very violent way in which I was grabbed and hurled into a van, with a huge fellow sitting on my head - and the way in which they immediately put on me handcuffs and chains on my legs," he told the BBC a year later.

Mr Dikko had been minister for transport in the government of Shehu Shagari until it was overthrown by the military at the end of 1983. He fled to London accused by Nigeria's new rulers of embezzlement - a charge he has always denied.

Labelled "Nigeria's most wanted man", a plot was hatched to get both him and the money back.

The extraordinary plan was to kidnap Mr Dikko, drug him, stick him into a specially made crate and put him on a plane back to Nigeria - alive.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20211380

www.nairaland.com/attachments/3780335_mugabe_jpegb6d6da38e8b22a0fc4198629955fb6f1

Your own citizen way be Diezani you cannot extradict na oyinbo una wan extradict. Abeg make we hear better word.

Ok

Yahoo government

is there a diplomatic relationship between the two countries to sanction such?

saintokwuluora:
Your own citizen way be Diezani you cannot extradict na oyinbo una wan extradict. Abeg make we hear better word.

You are wicked somebori. See as you strike truthfully to expose the incompetence of the dullard.

The major problems of this country include greediness, selfishness and lack of patriotism

nice one

The hatred some people have for this country eh....even the devil does not hate Nigeria to this extent. See them rejoicing & hoping for Yahoo company like PI D to win billions of dollars worth of free money.


Well, let me break it to you, if that money commot for Naija even you guys go surfer am, as nobody go buy ur over priced spare parts or ur low quality imported products from China

Do we ever learn? We breached a sham contract instead of FG to think of settling the company out of court,they are chasing a lost cause by trying to extradite the co-founders for trial in a country that has no regard for rule of law as if it would solve the mess already on ground. This administration is just full of clueless people. Until this case gets bigger than what it already is,FG no go wise up. Someone needs to whisper to them that europe is not Africa were contracts are taking likely.

[s]

solmusdesigns:
nice one

[/s]

Do Buhari know the meaning of extradition.

Una don start this morning.

We can't have the son extradited to testify here in Nigeria, even if possible the process alone will be time consuming. I think what FG is trying to do is to explore every opportunity and option left to it and eventually when the company has been stretched into a corner, then negotiate favorable new terms of settlement. Just my thought.
Meanwhile...
Are you a teacher?
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Rafiq2:
The hatred some people have for this country eh....even the devil does not hate Nigeria to this extent. See them rejoicing & hoping for Yahoo company like PI D to win billions of dollars worth of free money.


Well, let me break it to you, if that money commot for Naija even you guys go surfer am, as nobody go buy ur over priced spare parts or ur low quality imported products from China

Who cares, abeg make I hear word

Okay

Now the Bushmeat is being hunted for. More grace to the hunter.

gud day, pls i seriously need a job, i am a graduate of accounting (hnd) 07037799108

idogbo:
Wow. Today is my first day on NL and i made FTC too? This is a sign of victory for me.

I dedicate this plot of land to my ex, who broke my heart, left me depressed and turned me to social network addict. Make God reward you in your own coins. Amen

Your own hard

amazon14:
Do Buhari know the meaning of extradition.

Una don start this morning.

I laughed at the grave of your ancestors, they shouldn't have migration to Nigeria