President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday, in New York, told the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA74, that the Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID) company was trying to scam of billions of its lean resources.
The president made the allegation while presenting the country’s National Statement as the fifth speaker on the first day of the General Debate.
A British judge, had on August 16, 2019, given tiny P&ID the green light to seize more than $9 billion in assets from Nigeria following a failed natural gas deal.
The amount represents one-fifth of the foreign reserves of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.
The dispute which had dragged for a decade pits the inconsequential firm formed by two Irish business partners against oil-rich Nigeria.
The 2010 deal between the tiny company, widely reported to be registered in the British Virgin Islands, and the Nigerian government was meant to be a win-win for both sides.
According to The Guardian of London, one of the newspapers that broke the story, the said deal provided for P&ID, which neither has any impressive business presence in Nigeria nor the capacity and technical knowledge of the oil and gas industry, was to “build a state-of-the-art gas processing plant to refine natural gas… (that) Nigeria would receive free of charge to power its national electric grid,” according to the company’s website.
P&ID intended to sell the by-products from the process on the global market for “profits in the billions of dollars.”
Court documents released on August 16 showed that the arrangement fell through in 2012 without P&ID ever breaking ground on the plant.
But speaking on the first day of the General Debate at UNGA74, in New York, President Buhari admitted admitted that his government was facing the challenges of corruption head-on, and fired a warning to P&ID.
“We are giving notice to international criminal groups by the vigorous prosecution of the P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria of billions of dollars,” he declared.
A statement issued in New York by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, said the President held social media outlets responsible for fuelling major crimes such as mass killings and urged major tech companies to be alive to their responsibilities.
“They cannot be allowed to continue to facilitate the spread of religious, racist, xenophobic and false messages capable of inciting whole communities against each other, leading to loss of many lives,” Buhari declared in his speech to the general assembly of world leaders. “This could tear some countries apart.”
He also declared that, “No threat is more potent than poverty and exclusion,” noting that, “They are the foul source from which common criminality, insurgency, cross-border crimes, human trafficking and its terrible consequences draw their inspiration.”
Describing poverty “as one of the greatest challenges facing our world,” Buhari noted that, “Its eradication is an indispensable requirement for achieving sustainable development,” while highlighting his administration’s efforts to overcome the challenge.
On the 2019 presidential elections, he said “our people backed the politics of tolerance, inclusion and community over the politics of protest and division.”
In the speech, the President reaffirmed Nigeria’s position on certain issues which impinge on global peace, security, progress, democracy and development.