Nigeria To Pay $496m To Settle Indian Firm's Over Ajaokuta Steel

Forum 2 years ago

Nigeria To Pay $496m To Settle Indian Firm's Over Ajaokuta Steel

The steel company, located in Kogi State, was conceived to serve as the pillar of Nigeria’s industrialisation. It was built by the Soviets between 1979 and the mid-1990s but has never produced steel as the project was never completed. It was also mismanaged.

Upon the fact that it not working , the white meant well for us. But we evil ourselves

The levels of glorified “ignorance” being harbored by some Nigerians.

Olusegun Obasanjo handed over the Ajaokuta Steel Complex and National Iron Ore Mining Company to the Indian firm (Global Steel Holdings Limited).

His immediate successor (Umaru Yar’adua) illegally revoked that in 2008 against expert advice of the Federal Ministry of Justice, less than 2 months to legal termination of the pact, which would’ve even earned Nigeria nearly $30 million from Global Steel.

But due to that illegal revocation, Global Steel threatened a claim for damages amounting to about $10 billion. Presently, the government is forced to settle with Global Steel under the International Arbitration Framework, which led to the FG agreeing to pay the $496 to the Indian firm.

That’s one of the unfortunate situations Nigeria has found herself in. So many messes created that have to be cleaned.

It’s the same story with the gas contract agreed with a British firm, Process & Industrial Development Limited (P&ID) in 2010, from which a claim of about $9 billion was awarded by a UK Court against Nigeria, until the Federal Minsitry of Justice did so well to halt that attempted shortchange.

That’s also the same story with the planned Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project. The contract agreement was entered into with Sunrise Power Transmission Company (Nigeria) Limited (SPTCL) in 2003 on a build-operate-transfer basis, even though the company has no track record in power projects. Nothing was done, until 2017 when the FG approved the contract which was to be mostly funded by China Exim Bank. SPTCL then dragged Nigeria to International Court of Arbitration in Paris, claiming $2.354 billion damages for breach of contract. For that reason, the Exim Bank of China withheld funding of the project until the matter the matter is settled. The government has to seek a settlement of $200 million with SPTCL for nothing, over a mess it did not create.

Running a government is not eating rice with chilled zobo.

Those settlements are necessary in order to make progress, at least. Therefore, it is honestly quite absurd to be outraged over this inevitable move towards dispute resolution. That shows most Nigerians don’t even understand the depth of the mess the country has been immersed into.

Learn more about your country so that you don’t get shocked when inevitable steps are taken to clean some mess, unchain the country and remove yet another obstacle to our economic development. Know that and have peace of mind. Blazesam...