Nigeria gas contract scandal rocks UK Government

The P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria out of billions of dollars has been bursted. It was however gathered that Priti Patel, the British home secretary had repeatedly backed the company accused of obtaining Nigeria gas contract through corruption.

It was further revealed that Priti Patel, sought to publicly intervene three times on behalf of an offshore company that was been accused in a British court of obtaining a £100m contract from the Nigerian government through corruption.

How Nigeria gas contract Exposed UK Government

She repeatedly backed the company, Process & Industrial Development (P&ID), a British Virgin Islands-registered gas company, in its long legal dispute with the Nigerian government over a gas processing plant.

The home secretary is currently in the centre of a political storm after being accused of bullying staff in her department. She faces calls to resign after an investigation concluded that she had breached the ministerial code of conduct, although it also found her actions may have been “unintentional”.

NKONLINEBOLG further gathered, According to the UK based Independent Newspaper, Ms Patel’s intervention in the court case took place before she was appointed home secretary by Boris Johnson.

She was joined in supporting the company by Shanker Singham, a prominent fellow Brexit advocate, who is now a government trade adviser, in the bitterly contested legal action.

The case had been an issue of huge public interest in Nigeria with accusations of bribery and collusion between public officials and private concerns.

President Muhammadu Buhari raised the matter during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

The President said that “The present Nigerian government is facing the challenges of corruption head on,” he said.

“We are giving notice to international criminal groups by the vigorous prosecution of the P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria out of billions of dollars.”

P&ID had an agreement with Nigeria to build a massive plant to process natural gas. No work, however, was carried out on the plant. The company blamed the government for not supplying the gas; the government claims the contract was part of a fraudulent scheme.

P&ID had won compensation of $10bn over the failed deal. But the Nigerian government is appealing against the judgment, claiming that massive bribes had been paid to secure the contract.

P&ID denies any wrongdoing and holds that the Nigerian government had invented the corruption allegations in an effort to avoid paying compensation and to delay the seizure of assets.