Reno Omokri: Yar’Adua’s cabal, NOT Jonathan, signed P&ID deal

Reno Omokri, an ex-aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan, says the Process and Industrial Development Limited (P&ID) gas processing deal was signed before his principal assumed office.

In a statement released on Saturday, Omokri alleged that a cabal loyal to now-deceased former president Umar Musa Yar’adua signed the deal in January 2010 while Jonathan became acting president in February of the same year.

A British court had, on Friday, given P&ID the go-ahead to seize Nigerian assets worth $9 billion because Nigeria did not meet its end of the bargain.

“P&ID submits that it entered a gas supply and processing agreement with Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources in January 2010,” Omokri wrote, quoting court papers.

“Pursuant to the agreement, P&ID claims that it would build the necessary facilities and then refine natural gas into non-associated natural gas for a period of 20 years.”

According to Omokri, Rilwanu Lukman, now deceased ex-minister of petroleum, signed the deal.

“This transaction occurred in January of 2010. Former President Jonathan was not President in January 2010. During that time, he was completely shut out of power by an unelected cabal that ran Nigeria during the period of the ill health of the late President Yar’adua, before the National Assembly courageously intervened on February 9, 2010,” he wrote.

“That cabal not only fought against the ascension of then Vice President Jonathan to the office of acting President, but went beyond that to take documents, including budgets and contracts, to Saudi Arabia, and claimed that the then ailing President Umaru Musa Yar’adua had signed them.

“Nigerians may recall that the cabal announced on December 28, 2009, that the ailing President Yar’adua had signed a supplementary budget and other documents from his sickbed in Saudi Arabia, without the foreknowledge or acquiescence of then Vice President Jonathan or the Executive Council of the Federation.

“In fact, a week later, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) came out with an exposé alleging that the signatures on the documents were forged and Femi Falana (SAN) took up the case in court.

“The man who packaged and arranged the signing of the contract with P&ID was a member of the cabal and Yar’adua’s minister for petroleum, the late Rilwanu Lukman.”

Omokri, who is also an author, said members of the same cabal have been appointed as ministers and special advisers by President Muhammadu Buhari.