A good win

He went on: “Prior to Dr. Adedokun’s appointment, there had been discussions around an out-of-court settlement. The bureau, however, elected to continue with the arbitral process, maintaining that payments must be tied strictly to demonstrable value delivered.”

That decision yielded a positive outcome. According to the aide: “The underlying contract concerned the design, development/customisation, supply, installation and maintenance of a national electronic Government Procurement (eGP) system financed with support from the World Bank. The project aimed to strengthen transparency, accountability and efficiency across federal public procurement processes.”

He continued: “Central to the dispute was the User Acceptance Test (UAT). The UAT carried out by the BPP identified significant functional deficiencies, including critical omissions and errors affecting system performance.”

In its award: “The tribunal accepted Nigeria’s position that these deficiencies fell within the vendor’s responsibility to remedy at no additional cost. It further held that the contractor, as the technical expert, bore the obligation to ensure that the delivered system complied with contractual requirements irrespective of earlier technical documents that might have been approved by the BPP.”

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From the report, it appears the mediation was conducted at the International Centre for Arbitration and Mediation, Abuja. If so, we commend the drafters of the agreement for localising the venue of mediation.

No doubt, Nigeria has internationally recognised arbitration centres in Lagos and Abuja. There are also recognised centres across Africa; so arbitration over contract agreements which performance are in Nigeria, has no reason to be based outside the country.

The other problem we also face is poor legal drafting, which unnecessarily exposes the country to exploitation by foreign companies, which sometimes have no intention or capacity to execute the contracts they signed up to. Sadly, as seen in the past, Nigerian officials, for pecuniary interest, collude with the foreign interests to exploit our country.

We hope the message is loud and clear to foreign companies doing business in Nigeria, that the country is no longer willing to be exploited by buccaneers masquerading as partners working for the development of local capacity. According to Dr. Adedokun, “This particular vendor has taken various African countries to court and won every single case. Nigeria is the first to defeat them. We stood our ground against one of the best legal teams in the world because we believed in the expertise of our own Nigerian legal professionals.”

It is a shame that a so-called technology company will do a shoddy job and want to get paid for it.

We congratulate Nigeria for standing up to the bully tactics by European Dynamics UK Limited, to exploit technology-hungry countries in Africa, and urge other African countries to stare down the exploiter.

Of course, the best time to forestall litigation or prepare to win a case is to have a full-proof contract document.