The Federal Government of Nigeria has accused a Chinese company, Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. Limited, of subterfuge after a French court ruled in favour of the firm and granted the seizure of presidential jets belonging to the Nigerian government.

In the dispute involving an arbitration award, the court in Paris ruled in favour of the Chinese firm, allowing it to seize three presidential jets on routine maintenance in France as “security” for claims in a decades-long judicial matter between the foreign company and Ogun State.

According to reports, the court in Paris held that the seizure of the jets was to “preserve the claim arising from the arbitration award dated 26 March 2021, made by an ad hoc arbitral tribunal”.

Presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga alleged that the Chinese firm is trying “to take over offshore assets of the Federal Government of Nigeria through subterfuge”.

Onanuga said, flaying Zhongshan has no solid ground to demand restitution from the Ogun State Government based on the facts regarding the 2007 contract between the company and the State Government to manage a free-trade zone”.

“This arm-twisting tactic by the Chinese company is the latest in a long list of failed moves to attach Nigerian government-owned assets in foreign jurisdictions.

“The material facts in the transaction between the Ogun State Government and Zhongshan point to another P&ID case in which unscrupulous and questionable individuals falsely present themselves as investors with the sole objective of undercutting and scamming Governments in Africa.”

He claimed the foreign company “withheld vital information and misled the Judicial Court in Paris into attaching the Nigerian government’s presidential jets, which are on routine maintenance in France”.

“The use and nature of the Presidential jets as assets of a Sovereign entity whose assets are protected by diplomatic immunity forbid any foreign Court from issuing an order against them.

“We want to assure Nigerians that the Federal Government is working with the Ogun State Government to discharge this frivolous order in Paris immediately.

“Nigerian Government will always work to protect our national assets from predators and shylocks who masquerade as investors,” he noted.

Back in 2007, the foreign firm signed a contract with the Ogun State government to manage a free-trade zone but the contract was revoked by the state government in 2015.

Displeased, Zhongshan initiated an investment treaty arbitration against Nigeria under the bilateral investment treaty between the People’s Republic of China and Nigeria (the China-Nigeria BIT).