Nigeria, Feb. 18 -- Former Attorney General of Abia State, Uche Ihediwa, has rejected allegations by legal scholar Chidi Odinkalu, published in PREMIUM TIMES, that he shielded fraudsters and entered into questionable agreements in the litigation over the Paris Refund recovered by the state.

The Paris Refund refers to monies refunded by the federal government to states following the discovery that external debt repayments made to the Paris Club of creditors between 1995 and 2002 were over-deducted from state allocations.

Abia State, like other states, engaged private consultants at different times to help recover its share of the refunds. This process later became controversial due to disputes over consultancy fees, competing claims by m...