Peoples Gazette was told that a Chinese company, during a confiscation blitz of Nigerian assets, has completed repossession of a luxury jet owned by the West African country in Canada.
The Gazette heard from reliable sources that Zhongshang Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd recently got paperwork from Canadian authorities in Montreal allowing them to take custody of the Bombardier 6000 type BD-700-1A10 aircraft. This comes months after a Canadian court gave Zhongchang the power to bring the jet from Nigeria.
A person who knows Zhongshang’s actions spoke about the case anonymously and said, “The court gave orders for Zhongshang to seize the plane earlier this year, but the change of custody from Nigeria to Zhongshang was only recently completed.” “Zhongshang won’t stop taking Nigeria’s property worldwide until all the arbitration awards have been paid.”
Nigeria’s attempts to keep ownership of the plane were thrown out by Judge David Collier of the Superior Court of Quebec on March 21, 2024. Records showed that fugitive Dan Etete bought the aircraft for $57 million as part of a spending spree soon after getting over $350 million from the shady sale of the OPL 245 oil field in 2010.
Nigeria first took the plane from Mr. Etete in 2016 and trapped it in Dubai. Its tail number is M-MYNA, and its serial number is 9471. Flight tracking sites showed that it was then quickly taken to Canada on May 29, 2020. Nigeria quickly got a court order to seize it and kept it at Montreal’s primary airport. A Canadian company called Tibit tried to claim ownership, but Canadian judges let Nigeria keep control of the plane.
In 2023, Zhongshang tried to take back the jet, which had room for 19 people, while also enforcing its court decisions against Nigeria worth more than $70 million.
Judge Collier said that Nigeria did not challenge Zhongshang’s seizure of the plane and that the country’s claim that it could not reply to the lawsuit for nine months because of the general elections in February and March 2023 was not valid and unacceptable.
In the same way that the arbitration panel and courts in the U.K. did, the judge also turned down Nigeria’s claim of national immunity. An appellate court in the United States also recently decided that Nigeria cannot claim sovereign immunity from Zhongshang’s recovery of its arbitration ruling.
With the Bombardier luxury aircraft now in its possession, Zhongshang has successfully seized Nigeria’s assets in the UK, France, and Canada. The country’s guest houses, presidential jets, and the Etete jet have been confiscated, respectively—potentially more seizures are expected in Belgium and the U.S. in the coming weeks.
Although Nigeria has lost all its cases against Chinese investors in at least five countries, it has nonetheless maintained no wrongdoing in the lawsuits, which came from a botched free trade zone contract in Ogun State.
Nigeria and Ogun State have revealed ongoing attempts to settle the issue with Zhongshang, although movement has yet to be recorded since the parties first met in London from September 27-29, 2023. A spokesperson for President Bola Tinubu did not quickly return a request seeking views on the new development.
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