By Henry Ojelu

A legal practi-tioner, Dr Ted Iseghohi and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON are currently in a bitter legal battle over an alleged $381million judgment debt.

While Iseghohi is threatening to drag the ministry of finance to court for not complying with a garnishee order attaching the funds belonging to local government in the custody of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, ALGON through a letter to President, Muhammadu Buhari insists that Iseghohi did not execute any project for the association to warrant such claim.

In a letter to the ministry of finance dated April 8, 2021, Iseghohi through his legal representative wrote: “Our client got a Garnishee Order absolute attaching the funds belonging to Local Governments in the custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria in satisfaction of a Judgment debts as per Judgments of both the FCT High Court and the Federal High Court of Nigeria which entered Judgment in favour of our client for the sum of $318,000,000.00.

“At the instance of the Federal Government, this Judgment was compromised to the effect that the Federal Government agreed to pay less than the full Judgment debt. Mr. President has since December 2020 approved the payment of this sum through issuance to our client a Promissory Note because the Country is in financial straits. Since the approval of Mr. President, you, as the Minister responsible for carrying out the Presidential approval, have refused to carry out your official reasonability as a Public Officer hiding under the cloak of awaiting for consent and responses of the judgment debtors.

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“We hereby demand on behalf of our client your immediate compliance with the Presidential approval and effect the satisfaction of our compromised Judgment debt by issuing our client with Promissory Notes as proved.”

Meanwhile in a letter to the President date March 29, 2021, ALGON insisted that there is no evidence anywhere that it engaged Iseghohi to recover Paris Club refunds on its behalf.

It also claimed that there is no evidence to show that  Iseghohi did any work to merit the sum he now claims.

Vanguard News Nigeria