Niamey Airport Contract: Nigeria To Drag Niger To ECOWAS Court of Justice

Nigeria is to drag the Republic of Niger to the ECOWAS Court of Justice over wrongful unilateral termination of the Diori Hammani Airport construction contract initially awarded to a reputable Nigerian company, Architeam Group-Niaport SA.

This was revealed in an exclusive document sent to Solacebase on Thursday.

According to the document, in his efforts to recognize Nigeria’s contribution to his rise to power, President of Niger Republic, Mahamadou Issoufou, had awarded some contracts to several Nigerian Companies including the Airport construction contract to Architeam Group, headed by Alhaji Muttaka Tijjani, a well-known figure within the power circle in Niger.
Many months later and after investing billions of naira into the contract by Architeam Group, having done extensive studies on-site and papers of briefs and work done so far submitted, the contract was revoked and given to a Turkish Firm, Summa Company.

It is as a result of this wrongful contract termination, the Architeam Group referred the matter to Nigeria’s legal authorities and they have been several communications between the two contracting parties but no headway yet because of the continuous postponement of meetings and negotiations by Republic Niger.
Nigeria Attorney General and minister of justice, Abubakar Malami decided that the most appropriate line of action is to refer the matter to ECOWAS Court of Justice and a letter dated May 9th has been sent to the minister of foreign affairs of the Niger Republic though the Niger Republic denied any form of communication by Architeam Group.
The Nigerian authorities pledged to do everything possible in ensuring that its companies doing good works abroad do not get impartially treated like this and sources within the government stated that this will not be the first time, such malicious treatment was meted on Nigerian companies by the Republic of Niger.

“We will do whatever it takes to make sure justice is done and this company gets what they fairly deserve”, the sources added.

It could be recalled that President Issoufou has several of such bad cases which involved reputable international companies like Africans International, Africarail of Michel Bosio, which has prompted international civil organizations to tkae interest in this specific case of corrupt contract termination.