World
Meet Two Men That Got $9bn Court Judgment Against Nigeria
On February 15, 2015, members of the Irish music scene gathered in Dublin to pay their last respects to Michael Quinn, a long-time music impresario. Quinn was a well-known and colourful character. He partied and hob-knobbed with the who’s who in music, from the American band ‘The Supremes’ to the Irish folk band ‘The Dubliners’, until his death. Yet, it wasn’t the music stars who really attracted attention at the funeral; it was the large number of Nigerians in attendance, along with a Nigerian TV crew, that turned the heads of those gathered to say their farewells to Quinn.
Nigeria has, of course, seen its fair share of larger-than-life characters, but Michael Quinn deserves an honourable mention on any list. His rock-n-roll heritage led to a career in business, commodities, project management, and involvement in some of Nigeria’s most ambitious – and controversial – infrastructure deals of the past 30 years.
Quinn may be best known in Nigeria for being the co-founder of P&ID, involved in a gas flaring project that collapsed following the Nigerian government’s failure to uphold the terms of the agreement. This has led to Nigeria’s most difficult overseas investor challenge in its history: namely, the world’s largest arbitration award of over $9.5 billion.
What’s not really understood by most Nigerians is the full story on Michael Quinn – and his business partner, Brendan Cahill – and their business adventures here in Nigeria. BWN set out to investigate their business exploits, spanning Nigeria, Ireland, the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus and the United Kingdom, among others.
Where It All Began: ‘The Butanisation’ Project
BWN has established that Quinn and Cahill ran an international consulting company called Industrial Consultants (ICIL).
They got their first real start in Nigeria having won a contract from NNPC to establish Africa’s first-ever gas pressure vessel manufacturing facility – including installation at nine sites across Nigeria – known as the “Butanisation Project.”
In the early 1990’s, NNPC wanted to capture the Butane gas produced throughout the country at the oil refineries. Their plan was to install 1,000 tonne high pressure vessels at 9 sites across Nigeria with a total of 48 individual vessels to store this Butane.
At the time, the NNPC envisaged that international vessel manufacturers in the West (Europe, US) would tender for and export completed vessels into Nigeria. However, Quinn and Cahill had other ideas. They wanted to build the vessels in Nigeria. But they faced steep challenges in doing so, including the challenge of identifying qualified workers (welders and engineers) with the necessary skills.
To overcome this challenge, they pursued a technology transfer partnership with Babcock Robey, a long-established UK company, to consider setting up a factory, bringing in world-class welders and manufacturing the vessels in Nigeria whilst training up an entire cadre of Nigerian welders and engineers. This was not ordinary welding – an explosion at such a vessel would be devastating.
The technology transfer arrangement with Babcock Robey agreed that after completion of the project the factory and equipment would remain operative in Nigeria. As a direct result of that technology transfer, there are now a number of indigenous manufacturers in Nigeria, not only of pressure vessels, but of many other associated products used across the entire oil and gas industry. This industry as a whole is now worth billions of dollars to the Nigerian economy.
This technology transfer strategy would later become a signature strategy of the Quinn and Cahill approach to doing business in Nigeria.
Combating HIV/AIDS
Not all of Cahill and Quinn’s projects were as commercially successful as the Butanization project, though. An entrepreneurial project to support HIV/AIDS testing in Nigeria collapsed in the early 2000s, after disagreements between the various commercial partners – including Quinn and Cahill – and the Nigerian government. Why did the project collapse, and what was the involvement of Quinn and Cahill?
In the late 90s and early 2000s, sub-Sahara African governments were facing a staggering rise in the numbers of citizens suffering from HIV/AIDS. The lack of basic healthcare infrastructure, access to medicines, testing stigma and limited financial resources only made the plight worse.
In 2006, the Nigerian Health Ministry agreed to support a $15 million partnership with a local Nigerian company, Allied Consultants International (ACI) working with Trinity Biotech of Ireland to supply and create a facility that would locally-manufacture HIV testing kits. The Nigerian government would be a Joint Venture (JV) partner. Locally the company was known as Trinitron.
The initiative got off to a rough start due to the government’s failure to deliver the necessary funds and resources needed to start, and so ACI sought outside assistance. They went to Michael Quinn and Brendan Cahill and asked for their help. (BWN has established that Quinn and Cahill were not involved at the start of the project – they were simply called in to help when things began to go wrong). Quinn and Cahill arranged for new financing, and brought in new management. In return, Quinn and Cahill through ICIL became a shareholder in ACI. The new arrangement worked. Test kits were delivered from Ireland – over 4 million of them. And in May 2008 the manufacturing facility at Sheda was completed, and the first kits were rolled out for government licensing approval.
Notwithstanding this, the Nigerian government failed to purchase the test kits. This led in-part to the collapse of the project and the ultimate closure of the facility in Sheda, by the government.
BWN tracked down Gerry Nash, the project manager of the Sheda facility brought in by Quinn and Cahill, to understand why some in Nigeria claim this project was a sham or a fraud: He said: “The Trinitron project was an extraordinary success and supported Nigerians access to essential tests to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. We delivered over 4 million test kits that were vital to stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Sheda facility was in full operation and producing locally made kits. There will be those in the Western media who will say this project was a failure; however, that’s ridiculous as the only failure was the Nigerian government’s inability to continue funding the project.”
Port Expansion
Quinn and Cahill also had a hand in expanding the infrastructure of the ports of Lagos and Calabar. It resulted in them gaining a better understanding of the infrastructure and needs of cities like Lagos and Calabar. Their work in both communities saw the construction of improved industrial facilities that allowed for the increased import and export of goods and services.
Supporting Nigeria’s Military
Quinn and Cahill also found a niche in helping repair and rebuild ageing Nigerian military equipment. BWN has established that they worked on several such contracts since 2000.
In 2001, through their company Marshpearl, Quinn and Cahill won a contract to repair and upgrade 36 Scorpion tanks. Overall, the project was a resounding success, and delivered the tanks upgraded as required. Such military hardware upgrades were to be needed in the coming years, in particular in the fight against Boko Haram.
However, BWN has found that not all contracts with the Nigerian military were as successful as the Scorpion tank project. In 2010, Industrial Consultants partnered with a company called North Wales Military Aviation Services (NWMAS) and won a $5m contract to repair the ejector seats in six Alpha jets for the Nigerian Air Force, specifically for an Air Force unit called Aeronautical Engineering & Technical Services (AETS).
NWMAS had completed the first milestone of the project when the Nigerian AETS unit terminated its agreement with NWMAS and refused to pay for work that had been previously completed. Again, because the contract was well-structured and relied on milestones for payments, it should have been straightforward.
The two sides could not agree, though. This dispute ended up before a Nigerian arbitration panel, which awarded Quinn and Cahill $2.3 million because of the Nigerian decision to end the contract early and not pay for work completed.
Private Sector Projects
Quinn and Cahill didn’t just work for the government, but also for the private sector where they worked with some of the big names in the international oil industry.
For instance, their operation was involved in numerous feasibility studies in relation to high value projects (especially complex cable and fibre optics networks) subsequently undertaken by large private companies such as Shell – the Cawthorne Channel Gas Gathering Project and the Forcados Gas Gathering Project, to name but two. In relation to all of these studies – valued in aggregate in the hundreds of millions of dollars – the recommendations made by Quinn and Cahill were taken up and the specialist facilities proposed were successfully constructed.
Use of Offshore Companies and Section 54
Our investigation also revealed a pattern by Quinn and Cahill to use offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Cyprus to establish their businesses that operated in Nigeria. We wanted to look into why the two men used this tactic repeatedly and if it has any relevance for the current dispute with P&ID, which is also based in the British Virgin Islands.
According to experts, businesses use these tax havens because they help to lower tax bills, they offer sound legal structures for businesses, and they allow the identities of the ownership to remain confidential. These are all general reasons why BVI companies are popular with international businesspeople.
Some claim these mirrored entities lead to confusion and are meant to intentionally mislead, especially during legal and arbitration disputes.
In the legal dispute on NWMAS, rumours abound that NWMAS Nigeria Ltd was established without NWMAS UK’s knowledge and the subsequent arbitration was not made aware to the UK entity. We looked into this claim, because it is a serious allegation.
According to discussions we had with contacts who know the details of the NWMAS case, these allegations are false, and in fact, the NWMAS UK was named as Claimant in the dispute.
Conclusion
Why does this all matter – Irish entrepreneurs making deals in everything from medicine kits, to tanks, to ports? It matters because Nigeria’s government currently owes $9.5 billion in judgment debt to P&ID, which is the company founded by Quinn and Cahill.
Some senior officials of the Nigerian government have claimed that P&ID is a “fake” company. It is clear from our investigation that similar arguments were levelled against other Quinn and Cahill adventures, such as NWMAS, in the past, and were subsequently found to be untrue.
Our investigation around Quinn and Cahill has shown these two men as having a long-track record here in Nigeria. Yes, they’ve set up multiple tax haven companies. Yes, they’ve had their fair share of disputes and arbitration awards against Nigeria. Yes, they have had some projects succeed and others fail. They are entrepreneurs and risk-takers, that is clear. Nigeria is a tough place to do business, and it needs such people to invest and show good faith. Without such investors, Nigeria would be in trouble, because investors who are heavily risk-averse do not want to come here. What the country needs is genuine entrepreneurs.
There is clearly some criticism about Quinn & Cahill that stands up: the projects that did not succeed could have been better handled. But to claim that these were “scams” or “frauds” is obviously untrue: there are real buildings, and machines, and facilities that show the contracts were real, and the work done was real. There is literally concrete evidence of this.
So, efforts by some people to characterise P&ID and its founders, Quinn and Cahill, as frauds, clearly fall short, unless those making such claims can produce real evidence. In any case, attacking previous projects that have served their purpose does not have any relevance to the current P&ID dispute.
The fact of the matter remains that until recently, no one had alleged fraud or misdeeds in the P&ID case. To date, not once during any of the legal proceedings either in the UK or US – where they are active currently – or even during the Nigerian legal proceedings, were these issues or claims raised by the Nigerian government. This shows that some sections of the media are simply falling for the spin; the government itself does not even believe the rumours sufficiently to raise them in court.
The most important single fact on the P&ID case is that, by failing to follow-through on the P&ID agreement, the expert Tribunal found that the Nigerian government was at fault and is now faced with the grim consequences of potentially paying for one of the largest arbitration awards in history – currently standing at over $9 billion!
And there is no evidence yet that the government is ready to enter into negotiations to find an amicable solution to the issue.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Russia’s system of foreign students’ admission is currently experiencing a completely different shape, due to the rapidly shifting geopolitical reality. The emerging trends are closely connected with increasing the number of highly interested applicants rather than the quality of education. The geopolitical shift is pushing Russia to make education for young Africans an ultimate priority. The quota campaign has already begun as the figure compares favourably with previous benchmarks but, to some considerable extent, noticeable challenges are currently affecting enrollment from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Despite that, general interest in Russian education among foreign nationals is increasing; the quota campaign confirms this trend. Last year, for instance, there were about 144,000 registrations in Rossotrudnichestvo’s Education in Russian system. The number has exceeded 160,000 in 2026. What is important here is that Russia shows preparedness to get more students from developing countries, especially from Africa and uses it as a factor for influencing its foreign policy in the region.
Regarding educational initiatives, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with relevant agencies and organisations are active in Africa. Noticeably, Russia is developing and expanding the existing, successfully operating cooperation in the sphere of education. In fact, priority is given to projects in the field of education and training of professional personnel for African countries. Currently, over 37,000 students from Africa are studying at Russian universities. Reports say a gradual increase in the number of scholarships for African citizens and the expansion of the range of professional training programs will provide a strong incentive for further promoting education at Russian universities.
This will continue to actively strengthen inter-university ties with African partners, including through specialised umbrella organisations such as the Russian-African Network University, the Consortium of Technical Universities “Nadra Africa” based at the Empress Catherine II St. Petersburg Mining University, the Russian-African Network Transport University, and the Consortium of Russian Universities Working in West Africa based at the NGO “Centre for Public Diplomacy.”
Reports further indicated that the Rossotrudnichestvo representative offices—the Russian Science and Culture Centres—operating in eight African countries, as well as the Open Education Centres operating under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Education in 31 African countries, serve as a solid foundation for our humanitarian presence in Africa. They serve as conduits for the Russian language and culture on the continent. It is, however, hoped that their number would only increase in the subsequent years.
While addressing the staff and students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated Russia’s readiness to cooperate actively in the sustainable economic development and to strengthen efforts at training the needed specialists and professionals for Africa. After the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, there were problems sustaining relations with Africa. Then, after more than a decade, Russia started to return to Africa. This process has been ongoing for the past 15 years, according to the top Russian diplomat.
According to Lavrov, these past few years have been characterised by frequent interactions between Russian and African Foreign Ministers, plethora of MoUs were signed that set out the broad parameters of cooperation. Russia’s Education Ministry and the Foreign Affairs Ministry have raised the quotas for many African countries, the highest given to Angola, Ethiopia, Namibia and Mozambique, and South Africa.
According to a report posted on the MFA website in August, for instance, some 1,120 Angolans have enrolled, on Russian scholarships or grants, at various institutes and universities throughout the Russian Federation. Figures for other African countries are available on the official information portal of the ministry.
Besides state-sponsored students, Russia’s Education Ministry has also launched a large-scale educational campaign targeting the recruitment of private foreign students into its educational institutions across the Russian Federation. The program is to be implemented until 2025, which has a website (studyinrussia) translated into different languages, seeks to boost the popularity and improve its image abroad.
Undoubtedly, Russia aims at strengthening the next generation of pro-Russian elites who will help promote its interests, including long-term ones in their home countries. With this in mind, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ultimately, hope to improve the efficiency of “soft power” in Africa, though not to the levels during the Soviet era.
Understandably, Russia is now targeting Africa’s fast-growing population as a huge potential market for knowledge transfer and export education. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a widely circulated Russian daily newspaper, reported that Russia has been focusing on the young population in developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, targeting the elite and middle class in these markets for the export of education, which has great potential.
The newspaper reported on the advantages of multiculturalism and cross-cultural interactive activities paving the way for integration in Russian society. As far back as 2023, Russia’s Federation Council and State Duma (upper and lower houses of parliament) passed a bill. That bill was finally signed into law, allowing foreign students the right to employment, a replica of the work and study model in Western and European countries.
Professor Viktor Sadovnichy, Rector of Moscow State University and Chairman of the Russian Rectors’ Association, an organisation that unites more than 700 heads of higher education institutions, argued that education and demography are interconnected; developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have growing middle classes. “This favours the export of our education; it has great potential cooperating in the education sphere, it could serve as a huge market – training young professionals that are in demand on the labour market,” Sadovnichy said, addressing a plenary meeting of the Russian Rectors’ Association at Peter the Great St Petersburg State Polytechnic University.
Professor Natalia Vlasova, Deputy Rector at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation of the Ural State University of Economics in Yekaterinburg, explained that many African countries are developing rapidly, and the African elites and the growing middle-class have great potential for sponsoring their children’s education abroad. “In the times of the Soviet Union, African countries were strategic partners, and now we should reactivate these relations because in the near future they will have big economic and political power. This could, indeed, be a huge market and has the business potential,” she noted assertively.
An educational survey released in September 2024, divided into five major groups, said Russia has made significant efforts at improving teaching (the learning environment), research, citations (research influence), knowledge transfer, and international outlook (staff, students, research) in the educational field, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
One year after launching a continental initiative designed to make excellence in public governance the foundation of a new drive to transform Africa, LEAD, the Africa CEO Forum’s pan-African leadership programme, takes stock of its first cohort and announces the launch of its second class. Built around a community of senior public decision-makers committed to modernising the state and to the continent’s digital transformation, this new cohort gathers for three days, from 28 to 30 August 2026, on the campus of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Rabat, Morocco.
A second cohort that confirms the programme’s durability
For its second class, LEAD brings together 50 fellows, senior public decision-makers engaged in the design and implementation of the continent’s economic and social policies. Over three days, participants take part in collective and collaborative working sessions, peer exchanges and meetings with figures from the public, business and academic spheres, in order to compare their practices and build shared responses to the major challenges of governance.
Speakers include Mehdi Jomaa, former Head of Government of Tunisia, Donald Kaberuka, Managing Partner & Founder, SouthBridge Group, and former President of the African Development Bank, Serge Ekue, President of the West African Development Bank (BOAD), Sanjay Jain, co-creator of India Stack and Director of Digital Public Infrastructure, Gates Foundation, and Mauricio Cardenas, Professor of Professional Practice in Global Leadership, Columbia SIPA, and former Finance Minister of Colombia (2012-2018).
They share their reform experience, their public policy trade-offs and their view of continental priorities. Throughout the programme, the cohort benefits from the dedicated support of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Asafo & Co, BOAD, BCG and the African Development Bank, LEAD partners that have chosen to invest in the transformation of African public action.
LEAD, a pan-African community serving public action
Created by the AFRICA CEO FORUM, LEAD is a leadership programme whose ambition is to reposition Africa’s administrative elite as a driver of reform, of performance and of dialogue with all the continent’s stakeholders.
Designed for senior African public decision-makers, LEAD sets out to build a lasting community of public officials able to share their experience, compare their practices and build common solutions to the major economic, technological and institutional transformations under way in Africa. That community is structured around three pillars: modernizing the state, improving public services, and strengthening cooperation between governments, development institutions and private-sector players.
From fellows to alumni: a long-term initiative
Made up of 36 fellows drawn from a range of administrations and institutions and representing 24 countries across the continent, LEAD’s first cohort demonstrated the quality and the potential of this community from its very first year. In less than twelve months, six of its members have taken a significant step forward: two have been appointed ministers, two have moved into strategic positions at the highest level of the state and two have been promoted to chief executive roles. These moves, which account for 16.7% of the first class, show the role LEAD plays as an accelerator of impact within African administrations.
By bringing together a new cohort of fellows every year, each of them joining the LEAD alumni community, the initiative follows a long-term trajectory: in time, to unite several hundred African public decision-makers around a shared culture of transparency, performance and regional cooperation.
A first year devoted to public service and digital public infrastructure
Throughout the year, the fellows devoted their work to strengthening African public action, to make excellence in public governance a central lever of transformation. An awareness campaign, run as part of Africa Public Service Day, brought to light those who, within the continent’s administrations and institutions, are concretely transforming public policy and improving the services offered to citizens.
Members of the cohort also took part in a special round table held in Kigali during the ACF 2026, in order to carry their thinking to a wider community of public and private leaders. That forum reinforced LEAD’s role as a platform for dialogue between the administrative elite and the continent’s economic players. Digital public infrastructure (DPI) formed the main thread of this first year of work.
Discussions covered issues at the heart of the digital sovereignty of African states: digital identity, payments, secure data exchange, interoperability, governance and the protection of citizens. This work examined the conditions under which African states are developing, in some cases, and can develop, in others, shared, open infrastructure robust enough to improve the quality of public services while supporting local innovation and preserving the capacity of public authorities to set the rules of the game.
A white paper to move from consuming technology to creating value
This year of work concludes with the publication, in collaboration with BCG, LEAD’s Knowledge Partner, of a white paper on Africa’s place in the digital economy and in artificial intelligence. With the digital economy still accounting for around 5% of African GDP, against close to 15% worldwide, the paper calls on the continent to shift from a logic of technology consumption to one of value creation.
The white paper identifies three structuring priorities for African public actors:
- Building shared digital infrastructure that serves as the backbone of public services and private innovation.
- Pooling investment in order to reach critical mass and avoid the fragmentation of efforts across the continent.
- Favouring open and interoperable architectures, with trust and governance built in by design, so as to protect citizens while stimulating the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The white paper is available here to all public decision-makers, technical partners and institutions concerned.
“LEAD’s first cohort confirms a simple conviction: Africa already has the women and men capable of profoundly transforming public action. Our responsibility, either with our partners, is to give them, at pan-African level, a space in which to compare experience, build common solutions and bring forward a new generation of public policy. With this second cohort, we want to accelerate the move from ambition to execution, in particular on digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence, two decisive issues for sovereignty, for the effectiveness of the state and for value creation across the continent,” says Amir Ben Yahmed, President of the Africa CEO Forum.
By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh
Africa is set to make history as it hosts the World Public Summit for the first time, with Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, welcoming global leaders and changemakers from July 29–30, 2026, for the landmark gathering under the theme “New World: Africa in Shaping a Shared Future.”
The inaugural African edition of the World Public Summit marks a significant milestone in the continent’s growing role in shaping international dialogue on governance, sustainable development, human-centred leadership and global cooperation.
Hosted by the World Peoples Assembly in partnership with African and international organisations, the summit will convene government officials, diplomats, business leaders, academics, journalists, youth representatives, civil society organisations and cultural leaders from across Africa and around the world.
According to Andrey Belyaninov, General Secretary of the World Peoples Assembly, “the Summit is not just a meeting—it is a space for unity. A space where the ‘values that unite us’ come to life: respect for people, openness to the world, responsibility for the future, and a commitment to creation.
“Today, we understand more clearly than ever: the future cannot be built alone. It is born in dialogue, in trust, in the ability to listen to one another and to act together.”
The programme begins on July 29 with a series of high-level roundtables and expert discussions covering Pan-African economic integration, civil society, education, scientific cooperation, cultural diplomacy and humanitarian partnerships.
The opening plenary, “Values, Development and Partnership as the Basis of a Sustainable and Just World,” will explore how African values—including Ubuntu—can help shape a more inclusive and sustainable global future. Discussions will also focus on youth leadership, innovation, civil society, ethical AI, public initiatives and international partnerships.
The summit will also showcase Africa’s creativity and innovation through the “Innovations for the Future” exhibition, the contemporary African art exhibition “Unity,” and the international exhibition “The World Paints Happiness.”
Another featured initiative is “The Zambezi River: Economy, Society, Soul,” an international interdisciplinary project exploring the river’s socioeconomic importance across Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, highlighting the shared heritage and development potential of one of Africa’s most important waterways.
The event will conclude with the adoption of the African Communiqué, reflecting the summit’s shared vision for stronger international cooperation, sustainable development and people-centred leadership.
Tsegaye Chama, General Secretary of the Global Black Centre, promised that, “The Summit will be delivered with exceptional distinction, reflecting the magnitude and spirit of the World Peoples Assembly. It embodies a unity that is not transactional, but purposeful and conscious, a unity that shapes new contours for a world that works for all peoples of the World.”
As delegates prepare to arrive in Addis Ababa, anticipation continues to build for what promises to be one of Africa’s most significant international gatherings of 2026—one that will place the continent firmly at the centre of global conversations about the future.
