PEOPLES GAZETTE
Rotimi Oguneso, a Nigerian lawyer with ties to President Bola Tinubu, pocketed $170,000 as legal fees for his services on the arbitration panel that awarded $70 million against Nigeria over a botched free trade zone deal involving Ogun state and Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd.
Mr Oguneso, a senior lawyer who defended Bola Tinubu at the presidential election petitions tribunal in 2023, was nominated by Nigeria as its representative on the arbitration panel. Zhongshan nominated Matthew Gearing, a United Kingdom legal practitioner, as its representative on the panel.
David Neuberger, former president of the UK Supreme Court, chaired the three-man panel that sat for about one year between early 2020 and March 26, 2021, when a final decision was issued.
Zhongshang was awarded $55,675,000 plus interest of $9,400,000 and costs of £2,864,445 as of the date of the arbitration verdict on March 26, 2021, court documents said. The case stemmed from a dispute between Zhongshang and Ogun State. The firm said the state violated a 2001 trade treaty between Nigeria and China when its rights to a free trade zone were rescinded in 2016.
The cost of the arbitration panel was £549,655. Nigeria was ordered to bear all the costs as the losing party. Zhongshan paid £295,000, while Nigeria paid £195,000. Nigeria was ordered to refund Zhongshan.
Nigeria’s Mr Oguneso earned $170,000 while Mr Gearing was paid $155,000, and Mr Neuberger, the panel chair, took the lion’s pay of $273,000.
Having examined the allegations alongside co-arbitrators, Mr Oguneso joined his colleagues on the panel to issue a unanimous judgement that found Nigeria liable in the case brought by the Chinese.
Consequently, the panel awarded $70 million against Nigeria with two per cent monthly interest that has been accruing since the 2021 judgement.
