…Campaign council raises questions over $500,000 payment to ex-wife

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has called on the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, to withdraw from the 2027 presidential race, following disclosures arising from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration over the controversial Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project.

The call followed an ICC tribunal ruling in Paris that rejected claims by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited against Nigeria over the long-running dispute surrounding the Mambilla project in Taraba State.

The tribunal rejected claims involving hundreds of millions of dollars and ordered Sunrise Power and its promoter, Leno Adesanya, to reimburse Nigeria for 75 per cent of its legal fees and expenses, amounting to about $11.8 million.

But details emerging from the tribunal’s final award have also brought renewed attention to a $500,000 payment made by Adesanya to Jennifer Douglas, Atiku’s former wife, in January 2003, months before Sunrise was purportedly awarded a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla project.

According to reports on the tribunal’s findings, Adesanya acknowledged transferring the money through China Castle Investments Limited, an offshore company he controlled, to Douglas’s Citibank account in the United States.

Adesanya told the tribunal that the payment was part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku, who was Vice-President at the time. The tribunal, however, reportedly found that the explanation was not supported by contemporaneous documentary evidence.

The tribunal also examined the timing of the payment in relation to the Mambilla contract. However, the reported findings did not establish that Atiku personally received a bribe or that he ordered the payment. Rather, the panel considered the circumstances surrounding the transaction and whether the explanation offered for it was credible.

Reacting to the development in a statement on Friday, spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Dele Alake, accused Atiku of compromising Nigeria’s interests for personal gain and described the Mambilla controversy as evidence that the ADC candidate should not aspire to lead the country.

Alake alleged that Atiku and former Minister of Power, Olu Agunloye, worked together to facilitate the controversial contract in the final months of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s first term.

He further alleged that the contract was signed despite objections and reservations from Obasanjo and the Federal Executive Council, exposing Nigeria to substantial financial claims.

The APC spokesman linked the $500,000 payment to the subsequent award of the Mambilla contract and described it as a bribe. That characterization is the position of the campaign council; the tribunal’s examination of the payment did not itself amount to a finding that Atiku received a bribe.

The Mambilla dispute dates back to 2003, when Sunrise Power was awarded a contract connected to the proposed hydroelectric project in Taraba State. President Bola Tinubu said following the latest ruling that the Federal Executive Council never authorised the original contract.

Sunrise subsequently commenced arbitration proceedings against Nigeria, with claims running into billions of dollars over alleged breaches associated with the project. The latest ICC proceeding included a claim of $680 million and another claim exceeding $2.7 billion relating to disputes connected with the development of the 3,960-megawatt project.

Alake also drew parallels between the Mambilla dispute and the long-running P&ID arbitration, in which Nigeria successfully resisted a multibillion-dollar claim arising from a failed gas project.

He accused Atiku of enabling what he described as predatory interests and questioned the former Vice-President’s record on national interest and public accountability.

The APC campaign council also invoked criticisms of Atiku contained in former President Obasanjo’s memoir, My Watch, arguing that the latest disclosures reinforced concerns previously raised by the former President.

Alake therefore urged Atiku to withdraw from the 2027 presidential contest, describing the $500,000 transaction as only part of what he alleged were wider issues surrounding the former Vice-President’s record.

The APC spokesman also appealed to residents and political stakeholders in Taraba State to take note of the implications of the prolonged dispute over the Mambilla project, which was conceived as one of Nigeria’s largest hydroelectric developments.

Meanwhile, President Tinubu has described the ICC ruling as clearing what he called the “single biggest legal hurdle” that had paralysed the Mambilla project for years.

The President commended former President Obasanjo and the late President Muhammadu Buhari, who testified in the arbitration, as well as former ministers and members of Nigeria’s legal team for their roles in defending the country’s position.

The Federal Government has maintained that the ruling strengthens Nigeria’s position to pursue the Mambilla project while protecting the country from what it described as opportunistic claims against its commonwealth.