Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday chaired a meeting over the $9.6 billion judgement against Nigeria.
The $9.6 billion judgment debt against Nigeria by a British court was over a botched gas contract.
The meeting with Osinbajo started at his office around1.30pm.
Those at the meeting included the Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister, Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Silva.
Others are the Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Festus Keyamo, Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari,
Also at the meeting are the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele.
The meeting was still in progress at the time of filing this report.
Meanwhile, amid denials by officials of the government of complicity in the botched gas supply contract that resulted in the recent $8.9billion arbitral award against Nigeria by a UK court, the founder of the company at the centre of the controversy, Michael Quinn, on Saturday named key Nigerian government officials who played different roles in the process that led to the contract.
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.
The award in favour of Process & Industrial Development Limited (P&ID), a British engineering firm, followed an alleged breach of a 2010 gas contract agreement by the company and the Nigerian government.
In 2017, the tribunal awarded P&ID $6.6 billion as damages. But, the amount grew to the about $8.9billion with an additional $2.3 billion in accumulated interest at 7 per cent rate per annum following Nigerian government’s refusal to enter an appeal for over five years.
Reacting to the judgment, the Nigerian government described the award as a conspiracy to cause economic damage to Nigeria.
On behalf of the government, the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, said the government has resolved to probe the contract with a view to bringing suspected collaborator and conspirators to account.
Malami described as “irresponsible and mischievous” insinuations that either he or the Buhari administration is to be blamed for the increase.
“The records are there for any same persons to see and judge if indeed Malami or indeed the Buhari government can be held responsible for an act that had been completed five years before we came into office.
“The contract in question was a 2010 agreement signed five years before I came into office while the award by the United Kingdom court of Arbitration was in June 2014, one year before I was appointed Minister of Justice by President Muhammadu Buhari,” he said.
On his part, Quinn stated that the matter could have been resolved if the present administration did not jettison the out-of-court settlement deal struck by its predecessor.
Quinn reportedly named two former presidents, two former petroleum ministers, a former presidential adviser, a former permanent secretary in the petroleum ministry, and a former chief executive of the NNPC, and others, as being privy to the contract.