The Office of the Presidency on Thursday articulated its cognizance of the unsuccessful endeavors undertaken by a Chinese enterprise, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited, to unlawfully appropriate offshore assets belonging to the Federal Government of Nigeria through deceptive means.
It elucidated that the Federal Government bears no contractual obligations towards the aforementioned company, highlighting that the situation involving Zhongshan’s attempts to employ unorthodox strategies to expropriate the nation’s offshore assets pertains solely to a dispute between the company and the Ogun State Government.
This information was conveyed in a statement issued by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy.
The statement follows reports indicating that Zhongshan had successfully lodged a petition for the confiscation of three Nigerian presidential aircraft.
CREEBHILLS has learned that the confiscation stems from the government’s failure to fulfill a $74.5 million arbitration award granted to Zhongshan by an independent arbitral tribunal, presided over by a former Chief Justice of the UK Supreme Court.
The presidential jets in question are reportedly integral components of Nigeria’s presidential air fleet.
In response to the developments, Onanuga, in the aforementioned statement, conveyed that the Federal Government is fully apprised of the initiatives being undertaken by the Ogun State Government to achieve a mutually agreeable resolution regarding the issue.
Part of the statement read: “This arm-twisting tactic by the Chinese company is the latest in a long list of failed moves to attach Nigerian government-owned assets in foreign jurisdictions.
“The material facts in the transaction between the Ogun State Government and Zhongshan point to another P&ID case in which unscrupulous and questionable individuals falsely present themselves as investors with the sole objective of undercutting and scamming governments in Africa.
“Undoubtedly, Zhongshan withheld vital information and misled the Judicial Court in Paris into attaching the Nigerian government’s presidential jets, which are on routine maintenance in France. The use and nature of the presidential jets as assets of a Sovereign entity whose assets are protected by diplomatic immunity forbid any foreign Court from issuing an order against them.
“We are convinced the Chinese company misled the Judicial Court of Paris regarding the use and nature of the assets it seeks to attach and did not fully disclose to the court as required by law.
“This same Chinese company had tried to enforce its questionable judgment in the UK and USA but failed.
“Like the P&ID case, foreign companies are trying to defraud Nigeria with the collaboration of some bureaucrats. Zhongshan appeared to have sold the judgment they got to a venture capitalist seeking to make money by embarrassing the Federal Government and President Bola Tinubu.
“We want to assure Nigerians that the Federal Government is working with the Ogun State Government to discharge this frivolous order in Paris immediately.”
