Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has reopened talks with Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), the Irish engineering firm that recently won a $9.6 billion judgement against Nigeria. 

Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, chaired the meeting at which started at about  around 1.30pm and ended at 3:50pm.

A delegation of P&ID was seen leaving Osinbajo’s conference room after over an hour the meeting went into a closed-door session.

No official position on why the meeting held was made available to the press but a presidential source confirmed the representatives of P&ID were indeed invited to the meeting.

Asked to throw more light on the outcome of the meeting, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, said he was not authorised to speak.

He said his principal only represented President Buhari who had directed him to preside, direct journalists to the minister of information and culture.

Those at the meeting included the Ninsiter of Finance, Budget and National Planning Minister, Zainab Ahmed; Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva.

Others were the Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Festus Keyamo; Group Managing Director of NNPC, Melee Kyari; the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, and the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

Malami, who earlier met with President Muhammadu Buhari escorted by the Chief of Staff to the President, had recently said Malami, should be blamed for not negotiating while the legal proceedings were ongoing.

A British commercial court had granted the company powers to seize Nigerian assets worth $9.6 billion over a failed gas processing deal where the Federal government was said to have failed to fulfil its own part.

Malami had announced that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would prosecute all those involved in approving the failed deal.