$500,000 payment to Atiku’s ex-wife raises ‘significant red flags’ in Mambilla dispute – ICC tribunal

Leno Adesanya, promoter of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, failed to provide documentary or witness evidence to support his explanation that a $500,000 payment he made to Douglas Abubakar, the then-wife of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, was a legitimate foreign-exchange transaction.

This is according to the Final Award rendered by the ICC on Thursday, rejecting the claims in the arbitration instituted by Sunrise against Nigeria.

The tribunal report showed that the payment was made on 30 January 2003, less than four months before the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project contract was allegedly awarded to Sunrise by then Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye.

The tribunal considered Nigeria’s corruption allegations concerning the purported award of the Mambilla build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract, including the $500,000 payment to Ms Abubakar and three later payments totalling about $15,000 that Mr Adesanya directed to Mr Agunloye through his aide, Jide Sotinrin.

It noted that neither Sunrise nor Mr Adesanya denied making the payments.

“I confirm that I made a transfer of $500,000 to the Abubakars through my company China Castle Investments Ltd in early 2003,” Mr Adesanya said in his fourth witness statement, according to the tribunal award details.

$500,000 payment

According to the tribunal, Mr Adesanya transferred the $500,000 from the Swiss bank account of his offshore company, China Castle Investments Ltd, to a US bank account belonging to Ms Abubakar.

The tribunal noted that China Castle was an offshore company controlled by Mr Adesanya.

Sunrise and Mr Adesanya maintained that the payment was a foreign-exchange transaction carried out by Mr Adesanya for Atiku.

They said Mr Adesanya operated a bureau de change business through Moneyline Ventures Limited, which allegedly held the relevant licence.

However, the tribunal said the explanation was not supported by documentary evidence.

“Sunrise and Mr Adesanya have not provided any documentary evidence to corroborate Mr Adesanya’s explanation of the foreign exchange transaction,” the tribunal said.

The tribunal noted that Mr Adesanya claimed his discussions with Atiku or his staff concerning the transaction were exclusively oral and that, more than two decades later, he no longer had access to any written exchanges.

The tribunal said Mr Adesanya did not produce documents showing the underlying naira payment, the exchange rate applied, instructions from Atiku or his aides, correspondence concerning the transaction, or any record establishing its commercial purpose.

The tribunal also noted that neither Atiku nor Ms Douglas Abubakar provided a witness statement or declaration to support the explanation.

Significant red flags

In assessing the payment, the tribunal considered Mr Adesanya’s relationship with Atiku and his involvement in efforts to secure the Mambilla project for Sunrise.

The tribunal said the evidence showed that, from 2001, Mr Adesanya lobbied the Nigerian government and actively engaged with Atiku in an effort to secure the Mambilla project for Sunrise.

It also noted that Atiku led a Nigerian government delegation to Beijing in July 2002, which included Mr Adesanya.

During the visit, the Nigerian government and the Chinese state-owned enterprise NCPEC signed a memorandum of understanding on future cooperation, including the 2,600MW Mambilla project, estimated at $4.5 billion.

The tribunal then highlighted the timing of the $500,000 payment and the subsequent award of the contract.

“On 30 January 2003, Mr Adesanya paid an amount of USD 500,000 from the Swiss bank account of his offshore company China Castle Investment to a US bank account of the wife of Vice-President Abubakar,” the tribunal said.

It added that Mr Adesanya’s explanation that the payment was made in the context of a foreign-exchange transaction “is not supported by any documentary or witness evidence other than his own.”

The tribunal said the circumstances raised “significant red flags” concerning the payment and the alleged award.

“Although these facts raise significant red flags with respect to the alleged quid (the undue advantage offered by Dr. Adesanya through the payment of USD 500,000 to the wife of Vice-President Abubakar, who at the time held public office), the alleged pro (a causal link between this payment of USD 500,000 and the desired use of influence of Vice-President Abubakar to benefit Sunrise), and the desired quo (the use of the influence of Vice-President Abubakar as the government official, who was leading the Mambilla Project, towards granting a BOT contract to Sunrise),” the tribunal said.

However, the tribunal made clear that it had not found evidence that Atiku actually used his position to secure the contract for Sunrise.

“The Tribunal also observes that there is no evidence on the record of this arbitration that Vice-President Abubakar actually exercised his duties as a government official in a manner that fostered the award of the contract to Sunrise,” it said.

Tribunal unable to exclude link

Despite the absence of evidence showing that Atiku used his official position to facilitate the contract award, the tribunal said it could not accept Mr Adesanya’s explanation that the $500,000 was a bona fide foreign-exchange transaction.

“However, in the absence of any evidence that would allow the Tribunal to accept that the USD 500,000 payment was a bona fide foreign exchange transaction, it cannot exclude that the payment of USD 500,000 to Vice-President Abubakar was related to his leading role within the Nigerian Government from 2000 to 2003 for the Mambilla Project in the period between 2001 and 2003,” it said.

The tribunal also examined three payments totalling approximately $15,000 made between August and November 2019 to Mr Agunloye through Mr Adesanya’s aide, Mr Sotinrin.

Mr Agunloye was the Minister of Power and Steel in May 2003 when he notified the award of the Mambilla BOT contract to Sunrise.

The tribunal said the payments were among Nigeria’s corruption allegations concerning the purported award of the contract.

It noted that the payments were not denied by Sunrise or Mr Adesanya and proceeded to consider the circumstances surrounding them separately.

The Mambilla dispute

The Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project has been in development for decades and has been the subject of contractual, financial and legal disputes.

In 2003, the then Minister of Power and Steel, Mr Agunloye, awarded Sunrise Power a build-operate-transfer contract for the development of a 3,050MW Mambilla hydropower plant at an estimated cost of about $6 billion.

The agreement envisaged Sunrise financing and developing the project and recovering its investment from electricity sales over a long-term period.

READ ALSO: Mambilla: How Malami attempted to deceive Buhari, struck corrupt deals with Adesanya – ICC Tribunal

The legality of the award later became a central issue in the dispute.

In court proceedings in 2025, an EFCC investigator testified that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Federal Executive Council had not approved the contract and that Mr Agunloye awarded it on 22 May 2003, shortly after an FEC meeting at which the proposal was reportedly withdrawn.

Mr Agunloye has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges arising from the matter.

Sunrise subsequently commenced arbitration against Nigeria at the ICC on 10 October 2017, seeking about $2.354 billion over an alleged breach of the 2003 agreement.

A settlement was later negotiated under which Nigeria agreed to pay Sunrise $200 million. The agreement also provided for a 10 per cent penalty in the event of default.

Sunrise later filed another $400 million claim related to the settlement, which rose to about $680 million with interest.

On Thursday, the ICC ruling rejected the related claims, removing a combined potential exposure of more than $3.38 billion.

Efforts to reach Paul Ibe, Atiku’s spokesperson, proved abortive on Friday evening.