The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the Federal Government is preparing legal instruments that will enable it confiscate assets of Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) in Nigeria.
The minister stated this when he appeared with agencies under his ministry’s supervision to defend 2020 budget before the Senate Committee on Information.
“I am aware that the AGF is also working on registering the judgment in which the Nigerian court ordered the winding up of P&ID Nigeria.
“The important thing about it is that when this judgement is registered, it therefore, means that whatever belongs to P&ID now becomes the property of Nigeria.
“I am also aware that we are also working on instituting an action to set aside the entire award of $9.6bn on the grounds that the award did not take into cognizance, the fraud involved in the entire process.”
Mohammed said that some of the problems have just been brought to the notice of government.
According to him: “The Ministry of Justice is going to institute another separate suite in London to ask the UK court to set aside the entire $9.6bn judgment.
“I am also aware that efforts are being made to prosecute those Nigerians who have been found to be complicit or compromise their position for the P&ID company to exploit us.
“Investigation is still going on to apprehend whoever is involved in the entire scandal.”
On the attempt by the P&ID to seize Nigeria’s assets in the United Kingdom, to enforce the order of a British court against Nigeria, Mohammed said: “To the best of my knowledge, the Ministry of Justice, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the EFCC are also working very hard on the P&ID matter.
“As you are aware, we succeeded in London in getting a stay of execution and leave of the court to appear the judgement.
“Right now, we are appealing the $200m customary payment, that we were asked to pay as a condition for stay for execution.
“We are supposed to pay that money within two months, but I know that the Attorney General is busy working on appealing that payment.”
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