A FRENCH court has ordered the seizure of three presidential jets linked to the Federal Government of Nigeria over $74.5 million debt allegedly owed by Ogun State to a Chinese firm.
According to a Premium Times report, the jets to be seized are a Dassault Falcon 7X at Le Bourget airport in Paris, a Boeing 737, and a newly acquired Airbus 330 at Basel-Mulhouse airport valued at over $100 million in Switzerland.
While two of the jets, part of the Nigerian presidential air fleet, are said to have been recently put up for sale, the court order prohibits the movement, sale, or purchase of the jets until the Chinese firm, Zhongshan, receives the awarded $74.5 million.
The French court seized the jets due to the withdrawal of an agreement Ogun State had with Zhongshan.
This followed an application filed by Zhongshan, a Chinese company whose export processing zone management contract with Ogun State was revoked by the state in 2016.
According to the report, an independent arbitral tribunal, chaired by a former President of the UK Supreme Court, awarded Zhongshan approximately $74.5 million in compensation.
However, the Ogun State government has yet to honour the award.
Consequently, Zhongshan sought enforcement of the award through the French legal system.
The enforcement judge at the Paris Judicial Court granted the company authority to seize the aircraft, stating in the court order, “This protective seizure will take place to secure and preserve the claim arising from the arbitration award dated 26 March 2021, made by an ad hoc arbitral tribunal.”
The report further indicates that the confiscation of the planes followed a recent UK court-ordered seizure of Nigerian-owned properties in Liverpool, England, related to the same dispute with Zhongshan.
The properties, for which Zhongshan secured charging orders, are located at 15 Aigburth Hall Road and Beech Lodge, 49 Calderstones Road, in Liverpool, and are estimated by the company to be worth between £1.3 and £1.7 million.
The Ogun State government and Zhongshan have reportedly been in a dispute over the management of an export processing zone since 2016.
In 2010, Zhongshan’s parent company, Zhuhai Zhongfu, agreed to develop and manage Fucheng Industrial Park within the Ogun Guangdong Free Trade Zone.
Registered as a free trade zone enterprise in 2011, Zhongfu was later appointed interim manager of the zone. However, in 2016, Zhongfu alleged that the Ogun State government attempted to terminate its appointment and replace it with another manager, leading Zhongfu to initiate arbitration against Nigeria under a bilateral investment treaty with China.
According to the report, on 26 March 2021, an arbitral tribunal issued a final award of $55,675,000, along with interest of $9.4 million and costs of £2,864,445, payable by Nigeria to Zhongshan.
The federal government, including the Minister of Aviation, Festus Keyamo, has yet to comment on this development, as messages sent to the presidential aide, Ajuri Ngelale, and Keyamo have received no response.
Ogun reacts
Meanwhile, reacting to the development, the Ogun State government condemned the seizure of the three Nigerian government-owned aircraft in France by Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Ltd. (Zhongshan).
The state government, in a statement posted on its X handle, on Thursday, August 15, revealed that Zhongshan obtained two orders from the Judicial Court of Paris, dated March 7, 2024, and August 12, 2024, without notifying the Federal Government of Nigeria, Ogun State, or their legal representatives.
It further stated that Zhongshan’s actions are part of a pattern of unsuccessful attempts to seize Nigerian assets abroad, noting that Zhongshan misled the Paris court about the nature of these assets and failed to provide necessary disclosures.
The state contended that the aircraft in question were used solely for sovereign purposes and should be protected from attachment under both international and French laws.
The state stressed that it had, alongside the federal government taken swift action to ensure that the ruling on the seizure is lifted without delay.
“It should be recalled that the underlying contract between Ogun State and Zhongshan was executed in 2007, 12 years before the present administration, for the management of a free-trade zone. The parties entered into a dispute in 2015 with arbitration commencing in 2016.
“By 2019, when the current state administration took office, the hearing at the arbitration had been all but concluded. The arbitral panel awarded over 60 million USD against the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) which was a co-defendant, when all Zhongshan had done was to build a perimeter fence around the free-trade zone. Needless to say, this was a bad/unfair decision.
“The present state administration could not in all good conscience allow such an unconscionable and baseless decision, which would dissipate the commonwealth of the good people of Ogun State, to stand.” the statement added.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M