WITH the dust raised over the $9.6 billion judgment debt awarded to Process and Industrial Development Ltd yet to settle, another controversy over ownership of the project has surfaced.A report by Businessweek quoted the one-time Minister of Defence as claiming that he committed $40 million to the takeoff of the project.
Gen. Danjuma was quoted as saying that “my consultant was going to steal my project,” and recalled being promised a share of P&ID in return for his initial investment, but added that he hadn’t heard from the company in years. The report added that P&ID’s spokesperson declined to comment on Danjuma’s involvement or any other matters raised in the story.It all began in 2008 when the Nigerian government said it would end flaring by using oilfield gas to generate electricity.
Then the plan fell apart. The government failed to secure any waste gas from oil companies, let alone link up the necessary pipeline, and the plant was never built. In 2012, P&ID notified the oil ministry that it was suing for breach of contract in a London arbitration forum. Last month, P&ID won a ruling from a London judge allowing the firm to start seizing Nigerian assets. Hailed as a vindication by Quinn’s company, it caused an outcry in Nigeria. Finance minister said at a news conference that the size of the award, which had risen above $9 billion with interest, meant all Nigerians would pay a price. The justice ministry opened a corruption investigation into how the gas plant deal was struck.
Quinn’s business drew on some powerful allies dating to his show band days. One of the closest was Albert Reynolds, a former music hall impresario who was elected to Parliament in 1977 and became prime minister in 1992. Two years after being elected PM, Reynolds was promoting Kent Steel, one of Quinn’s companies, as a potential savior of Irish industry. Kent had recently won three million Irish pounds from the European Union to explore cleaner technology for making steel—potentially a huge boon.
By then, Quinn had developed a fearsome reputation. Several former associates told Businessweek they were scared to speak on the record about him, because they believed he had ties to Irish paramilitaries; one said Quinn told him his father had been in the original Irish Republican Army in the 1920s.
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