Nigeria’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has hinted that investigation in the Process and Industrial Developments contract revealed local connivance in the deal.
Malami gave the hint while speaking in an interview with the Nigerian Television Authority on Tuesday.
He said the contract was signed because some Nigerians were compromised.
“From the investigation, it became clear that there were local compromises,” he said.
According to Malami, the contract should not have been awarded in the first place without due diligence on the company.
“The question we asked was: who are the characters involved in Nigeria? It is only logical that when you are committing a nation to a contract that has economic implications, that due diligence must be done.
“We have institutions like National Intelligence Agency, Department of State Services, the police and Interpol that can conduct the due diligence. But because the intention, from the beginning, was never for the contract to be executed, all these processes were not carried out,” he said.
Though, the Federal Government has taken legal action against several people involved in the contract, Malami assured that Nigerians involved in the compromise would face the consequences.
“From the report that came our way, we took the decision to ensure consequences for wrongdoing and that those elements that were involved in the act of wrongdoing were investigated, charged and convicted. The investigation is ongoing and some facts are still emerging.
“For heads rolling, I can certainly state that there is a possibility of multiple and uncountable heads rolling,” he added.
The Gas Supply Purchasing Agreement is a 20-year contract under which P&ID was to build gas processing facilities in Cross River State and the government to supply wet gas up to 400m standard cubic feet per day that will be processed to generate electricity.
But,Nigeria has been trying to overturn a January 2017 judgement that asked the country to pay P&ID $6.6bn as damages, as well as pre- and post-judgement interest at seven per cent.
The company had claimed that Nigeria breached the terms of the agreement signed in 2010.
