…AS FG REPEALS 60 YEARS OLD LAW ESTABLISHING FIRE SERVICE
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed on Wednesday said the Federal Government has not accepted the United Kingdom’s commercial Court judgement that ruled out fraud in the OPL 245 transaction between Nigeria and JP Morgan Chase Bank.
The London court judgement was based on the fact that there was no evidence of fraud in the transaction.
But Lai Mohammed stated that government’s lawyers will study the judgment and decide whether to appeal or not.
The Information Minister made the disclosure while responding to questions from State House Correspondents at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
It would be recalled that Commercial Court of England and Wales, yesterday ruled on the matter in Case No CL-2017-000730 as contained in its 137-paged judgement.
An Italian court in 2021 had also dismissed all corruption charges in the OPL 245 deal, discharging and acquitting all the defendants.
Following the judgement, the Nigerian government lost $1.7 billion claims against JP Morgan Chase Bank over the transfer of proceeds from the sale of OPL 245 in 2011
In the contending issue, the Nigerian Government had argued that the contract awarded to former Petroleum Minister Dan Etete, to explore the deep waters off the Gulf of Guinea was corrupt.
Nigeria alleged that the bank “ought to have known” that there was corruption and fraud in the transaction which saw Malabu sell its 100 per cent in OPL 245 to Shell and ENI for $1.1 billion.
According to Nigerian government lawyers, the bank ignored “glaring” red flags, including “overwhelming” evidence of fraud and stark warnings from its own compliance staff when it authorized the payments.
In another development, Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed that the Council has approved the enactment of the Federal Fire and Rescue Service Establishment Act 2022.
Aregbesola made the disclosure while speaking on discussions reached at this week’s meeting.
According to him, the new proposed law was meant to replace the old law establishing the Fire Service, which has been in existence for 60 years.
“The Federal Executive Council today approved the repeal of the 60 year old Fire Service Act Cap F29, LFN 2004 and in its stead, the council approved the enactment of the Federal Fire and Rescue Service Establishment Act 2022, which is meant to bring into currency the operations and professionalism of the Federal Fire Service as it delivers its services to Nigerians,” he said.
The Minister added that the Council equally directed the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, to put finishing touches to the bill for further transmission to the National Assembly for passage.
“The Attorney General was required to process and present to the National Assembly for review and ultimate passage and we expect that the law, when eventually passed and approved by the President will help in improving the capability and capacity of the Federal fire Service,” he added.