Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Elder statesman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuayanwu has called on the Federal Government to be tactful in the manner it handle the $9 billion court judgment.
He expressed fears that both our foreign currency and naira would collapse if the judement is not properly handled.
A commercial court in the United Kingdom recently gave a judgment against the federal government for a failed contract, granting the Irish company P & ID permission to seize up to $ 9 billion in assets belonging to the Nigeria government.
The initial award was $6.6 billion as damages in favour of P&ID, which accused the Nigerian government of breaching a 2010 gas contract agreement.
He recently ruled that $9 billion of Nigeria’s foreign reserves and asset be seized for a failed contract,
Iwuayanwu who spoke our correspondent on phone from London noted that the judgment has made a lot of Nigerians leaving abroad apprehensive and worried.
“The Federal Government should most importantly negotiate with the Irish company, look at the contract again to see if it’s a good project for the country.”
He also pointed out that carefully negotiation with the company would afford the country the opportunity of defraying the judgement debt at its own rate.
Iwuayanwu is also of the opinion that such contracts abound also in states.
He, however, urged the Federal Government to find out those states having such contract including at the federal level to avert future calamity judgment.
“State attorney generals should call on the state government that have such contracts by foreign companies so that such experience would not occur again,” Iwuayanwu said.
The award was handed by a tribunal constituted under the rules of the Arbitration Act 1996 (England and Wales) and the Nigerian Arbitration and Conciliation Act (CAP A18 LFN 2004).
Following Nigeria’s refusal to enter appeal for over five years since the ruling was given, the court said initial award rose to about $8.9billion, including an additional $2.3 billion in accumulated interest at 7 per cent rate per annum.