The Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) has said the federal government will prosecute Nigerians involved in compromising the processes in awarding the gas supply and processing contract with Process & Industrial Development (P&ID).
In an interview with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) on Tuesday, the minister blamed those involved in the awarding of the contract to the company, noting due diligence was not done before the job was awarded.
Malami, however, revealed that the contract was signed and given to the foreign company because some Nigerians were bribed.
He said Nigeria has been trying to overturn a January 2017 judgement that asked the country to pay P&ID $6.6 billion as damages, as well as pre- and post-judgment interest at 7 percent.
The company had claimed that Nigeria breached the terms of a gas supply and processing agreement that was signed in 2010, the claim which the Nigerian government has rebuffed.
“From the investigation, it became clear that there were local compromises,” he said.
“The questions 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 NIA, DSS, 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.
“From the report that came our way, we took the decision to ensure that there are consequences for wrongdoing and those elements that were involved in the act of wrongdoing were investigated, charged, arraigned and convicted. The investigation is ongoing and some facts are still emerging.
“As far as heads rolling, I can certainly state that there is a possibility of multiple and uncountable heads rolling is there.”
