Former President Jonathan has responded to a subpoena by the Nigerian Government before a federal court in the United States seeking permission to access the bank account information of himself, his wife, and other government officials over alleged P&ID contract scam.
The contract which has become a subject of corruption litigation required Process and Industrial Developments Ltd. (P&ID) to build a gas processing plant and the government to supply it.
In a statement, Former President Jonathan said the Nigerian government contacted neither him nor his wife before issuing the subpoena, adding that “we would have advised them of the fact that you cannot subpoena what does not exist.”
Jonathan insisted he does not have foreign bank accounts and that President Buhari’s government was advised on how to resolve the P&ID case but ignored the advice.
“We state that the signing of the P&ID contracts preceded the Jonathan administration and that that government gave appropriate counsel to the incoming government in the handover notes of 2015, which advice if carried out, would have prevented the current unfortunate circumstances.”
The Nigerian government made the request in a bid to overturn a judgment given by a UK judge last August, which ruled that P&ID could enforce an arbitration tribunal’s 2017 ruling, now totaling $9.6 billion including interest, which found Nigeria guilty of breaching the agreement, according to Bloomberg.
“There is good reason to believe that ministers at the highest level were involved in a corrupt scheme to steal money from Nigeria,” Abubakar Malami said in court filings, quoted by Bloomberg. ”P&ID had no ability or intention of ever performing the contract.”
In a court filing, P&ID denied allegations and described the subpoena as “nothing but an absurdly overbroad fishing expedition.”
A spokesman for P&ID said Malami “manufactured a claim of fraud and bribery” to evade the state’s legal obligation to pay what amounts to about 30% of the country’s foreign reserves, according to Bloomberg.
The Judge presiding over the case allowed Nigeria to send copies of its application to the banks, Bloomberg reported. But has not decided whether to give access to the financial documents.
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