Ibadan-born lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Niyi Akintola, has revealed that there are more judgement debts on the neck of the federal government.
Akintola stated this when he featured on Fresh FM radio’s Political Circuit, a live interview programme monitored by Nigerian Tribune in Ibadan.
Citing another judgement debt, Chief Akintola said there is one billion dollar judgment over the country apart from the accumulated $9.6 billion judgment debt instituted by P&ID.
According to the Nigerian Tribune report, he revealed that a $237 million judgment was entered against Nigeria by an arbitration panel in the United Kingdom in 2003 in a case brought before it by an Ibadan-born entrepreneurial icon, Chief Bode Akindele, against the Federal Government over the cancellation of the contract for the purchase of the defunct Nigeria Telecommunication (NITEL).
He described Nigeria as “a country where anything goes” successfully bought NITEL from the Federal Government for a sum of $237million and paid one third of the sum.
He explained that Akindele’s refusal to “play ball” and part with some shareholding for some interests in government at that time led to the contract being called off for no justifiable reason, prompting the legal battle before the arbitration panel.
Akintola said further that accumulation of interest since 2003 when the judgment was given would have shot the debt up to about $1 or $2 billion.
