{"id":5818,"date":"2020-09-10T14:54:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T13:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=5818"},"modified":"2020-09-10T14:54:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T13:54:44","slug":"uk-court-affirms-daily-trusts-report-that-vp-sounded-early-warning-on-pid-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/uk-court-affirms-daily-trusts-report-that-vp-sounded-early-warning-on-pid-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Court affirms Daily Trust\u2019s report that VP sounded early warning on P&ID fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Abdul claimed in his post<\/a> that nothing in the Daily Trust<\/a>\u2019s report supported the accompanying headline: \u201cHow Osinbajo Detected P&ID Fraud Against Nigeria \u2014 UK Judge\u201d. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cfake news alert\u201d on the report is misleading. The report is a genuine account of the judgment read by Sir Ross Cranston of the UK High Court of Justice Queen\u2019s Bench Division Commercial Court. Sir Cranston said in his judgement that Vice President Osinbajo had described the P&ID transaction as  \u2018a fraud on the nation.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Text<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Abdul, using his twitter handle, @ishakaa with over 29,000 followers, tagged<\/a> the report that the UK Judge\u2019s observation in his ruling that Professor Osinbajo detected P&ID fraud against Nigeria, as a \u201cfake news alert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tweet<\/a> claimed that nothing in the report supported the headline of the story: \u201cHow Osinbajo Detected P&ID Fraud Against Nigeria \u2014 UK Judge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFAKE NEWS ALERT: pls can the editor of @daily_trust Paper give us the link to that UK court records, there is nothing in your report to support this headline,\u201d the tweet<\/a> read.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Fake news alert on report of UK Court judge\u2019s comment on Osinbajo<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About the \u2018fake news alert\u2019 report<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On September 6, 2020, Daily Trust<\/a> Published a report<\/a> with the headline, \u201cHow Osinbajo Detected P&ID Fraud Against Nigeria \u2014 UK Judge,\u201d detailing the judgement of Sir Ross Cranston of the UK High Court of Justice Queen\u2019s Bench Division Commercial Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report stated that the Judge ruled that \u201cthe timely observation and interventions of the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, was instrumental in how the Process and Industrious Development Limited (P&ID) case became known and identified as a fraudulent endeavour.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Daily Trust\u2019s report stated that the judge noted that the Vice President\u2019s \u201cfraud on the nation\u201d statement in June 2018 turned the case against P&ID in Nigeria\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper reported that according to the judgment read by Cranston, \u201cThen the Attorney General and then Minister of State for Petroleum Resources had written to the Vice President on 23 May 2018 recommending further negotiations with P&ID. The Vice President had agreed, adding in manuscript on the letter that he was still of the opinion that the underlying transaction was \u2018a fraud on the nation\u2019, and that perhaps there might be \u2018a need to independently review this view and investigate the entire affair more diligently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the Judge actually say so in his ruling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verification<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This researcher obtained<\/a> the approved judgement of Nigeria Versus P&ID with Case No: CL-2019-000752 delivered on September 4, 2020 by the High Court of Justice Queen’s Bench Division Commercial Court, Sir Ross Cranston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approved judgment has also been published <\/a>by Premium Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An examination of the judgement of Sir Cranston, showed that the Judge mentioned \u201cProfessor Yemi Osinbajo\u201d once, \u201cVice President Osinbajo\u201d once, and \u201cVice President\u201d 17 times in reference to the roles Nigeria\u2019s number two citizen played in the P&ID transaction with Nigeria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sections 69 to 73 of the judgement detailed how Professor Osinbajo received several correspondences on the case and the options before Nigeria when he was Nigeria\u2019s Acting Vice President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section 74 detailed how Professor Osinbajo escalated the case to the level of President Muhammadu Buhari. \u201cOn 12 June 2018 the Vice President\u2019s office reported that he had agreed with the recommendation and would take up the matter with the President,\u201d the judgment read. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, section 89 detailed how the Attorney General and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources wrote to the Vice President on 23 May 2018 recommending further negotiations with P&ID. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Vice President had agreed, adding in manuscript on the letter, that he was still of the opinion that the underlying transaction was \u201ca fraud on the nation,\u201d and that there might be \u201ca need to independently review this view and investigate the entire affair more diligently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, Section 90 of the Judgement revealed that on June 12, 2018, the Vice President\u2019s office wrote formally to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, stating his view that \u201cthe whole arrangement amounts to a fraud on the nation,\u201d and that he had, therefore, additionally recommended to the President \u201cthe need to independently investigate all the relevant circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judgement showed that it was on the basis of the recommendations that the President issued a directive on June 26, 2018 that the transaction be probed: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn 28 June 2018 the Attorney General, Mr Malami, wrote to the acting chairman of the EFCC, passing on the President\u2019s instructions to conduct a thorough investigation of the circumstances surrounding the [GSPA] and the subsequent events.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cfake news alert” on the report<\/a> published by Daily Trust that Sir Cranston ruled that Professor Osinbajo detected P&ID\u2019s alleged fraud against Nigeria is misleading. The report is a genuine account of the judgment read by Sir Cranston. Sir Cranston mentioned unambiguously\u00a0 that Vice President Osinbajo described the P&ID transaction as\u00a0 \u2018a fraud on the nation.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abdul, a twitter user, has tagged as \u201cfake news alert\u201d a report that a United Kingdom Judge ruled that Nigeria\u2019s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, detected P&ID\u2019s alleged fraud against Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[210,120,123,16,443],"tags":[204,60,1306,1315,1314,126],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[1131],"class_list":["post-5818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-economy","category-mainstream","category-politics","category-quick-checks","tag-fake-news","tag-nigeria","tag-pid","tag-vice-president","tag-vp","tag-yemi-osinbajo"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-1vQ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1131,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"francis-arinze-iloani","display_name":"Francis Arinze Iloani","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ee7d89c3d98e6b5d3a524c6bd08d5b952b915fba3241c075d056fff8699cd873?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/A3D4D7D6-9BE6-4C8D-94C0-530AEB4FA8BD.png?fit=1200%2C700&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=5818"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}