Paris Club Refund: ‘Ned Nwoko Deserves National Award, Not Witch-hunting’ – CUPPCSO

The Coalitions of United Political Parties and Civil Society Organisations, (CUPPCSO), has called on the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), to honour its agreement with Nigerian politician, Ned Nwoko.

Naija News reports that the civil organisation made the demand at a press conference in Abuja, on Thursday, stressing that Ned Nwoko deserves a national award and not witch-hunting.

In a statement jointly signed by the CUPPCSO National co-Spokesman, Mark Adebayo, Director of Mobilisation, Kenneth Udeze and Centre for Public Accountability, Adefemi Lawson insisted that justice must be done by paying the Paris/London Club refunds consultant what was earlier agreed.

The organizations claimed that compensating Ned for doing an outstanding job of recovering billions of dollars that the NFG never knew it existed should not be a difficult task.

The group also analysed the overview of the issues, from the legal actions to getting the FG to commence refunds to states and local governments and the total money refunded so far.

The statement reads: “On the legal actions to get the FG to commence the refunds to the states and LGs, it is on record that it was only Ned Nwoko Solicitors that proceeded to Court via a class action on behalf of its clients – the states – to compel the FG to commence the refunds to them. No other consultant or legal firm did. (NGF’s letter presented)

“It is on record that Linas International/Ned Nwoko Solicitors commenced work on the old Gongola State comprising Adamawa and Taraba states before other states showed interest and joined with documented consultancy agreements.

“Based on the intervention of Ned Nwoko Solicitors and legal action on behalf of the states on the instructions of the NGF, the FG began to execute the refunds in 2016.

“The total amount refunded by the FG totalled USD$10Billion to states and USD$3.1Billion to LGs due principally to the legal actions cited above and serious personal lobbying of the presidency/FG embarked upon by Hon. Ned Nwoko.

“Any other consultant or contractors mentioned in any publication with regard to this matter has nothing to do with the Paris/London Clubs refunds in terms of recovery. Riok International, for instance, is making claims from the refunds on the basis of the borehole contracts it executed for the LGs and did not play any role in executing the refunds. Panic Alert, too, played no role whatsoever. It’s only work related to the refunds was that it was hired by the NGF to audit the work of Ned Nwoko Solicitors and Linas International upon which it concluded its report that “We thus recommend that the Forum/State Governors (sic) should allow the Consultant – Linas International Limited get their 20% being the agreed upon fees for the services rendered, but withhold the 15% for the contractors because we have deem (sic) ALGON and the contractors’ actions tantamount to unethical business practices and unjust enrichment”.

“We wish to state categorically that the 25-page report of the EFCC investigation into this matter unequivocally revealed that Ned Nwoko Solicitors carried out the consultancies for the recovery and delivered the job perfectly.”