Atiku to APC: I didn’t influence Mambilla power contract and I wasn’t indicted

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration tribunal in Paris did not issue a corruption verdict against him in the case involving Sunrise Power and the federal government.

In a statement issued on Friday by Phrank Shaibu, his senior special assistant on public communication, Atiku, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), said he was not a member of the procurement panel that awarded the Mambilla power contract to Sunrise.

Atiku’s comment was a reaction to the statement of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council asking him to withdraw from the 2027 presidential candidate for allegedly compromising Nigeria’s interests in the power project.

BACK STORY

On Thursday, the ICC in Paris ruled in favour of Nigeria in the $2.35 billion award sought by Sunrise Power over the Mambilla hydropower project.

The tribunal dismissed Sunrise’s claim that Nigeria breached its contractual obligations under the settlement agreement and the addendum.

It also directed Sunrise and Leno Adesanya, the promoter, to refund Nigeria’s legal fees of $11.8 million.

Adesanya had told the tribunal that the $500,000 he transferred to Jennifer Douglas, then Atiku’s wife, in January 2003, was part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for the former vice-president.

The payment was made on January 30, 2003, less than four months before Sunrise was purportedly awarded a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla hydropower project, through China Castle Investments Limited, an offshore company controlled by Adesanya.

Details of the transaction and Adesanya’s explanation are contained in the final award issued by a three-member ICC tribunal in the arbitration between Sunrise and the Federal Republic of Nigeria, reviewed by TheCable.

Reacting to the tribunal judgment, the APC campaign council said the timing of the payment raised questions because it was made during negotiations over the Mambilla project.

The council alleged that Atiku, who was vice-president at the time, and Olu Agunloye, then minister of power, worked together to facilitate the contract despite objections from former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

‘APC CONVERTED SUSPICION INTO GUILT’

Responding to the council, Atiku challenged the APC to present the “exact portion of the final award where the tribunal found that he collected a $500,000 bribe, and instructed” Agunloye to award the contract to Sunrise.

The former vice-president accused the APC campaign council of allegedly converting “suspicion into guilt, and an unexplained transaction into a proven bribe”.

Atiku described the council’s allegations as a “political fabrication”, adding that the APC wants to convert “allegation canvassed before arbitrators into a verdict the arbitrators themselves never delivered”.

“The APC cannot manufacture the missing finding simply because the actual award does not provide the political conclusion it desperately wants,” Atiku said.

“Nigeria alleged before the tribunal that the transfer was connected to the disputed Mambilla contract. Sunrise and Adesanya denied that allegation.

“Adesanya offered an explanation which the tribunal did not accept.

“But an unsuccessful explanation by Leno Adesanya does not automatically become a corruption verdict against Atiku Abubakar.

“I was not a member of the technical process that evaluated the competing proposals and recommended Sunrise. I did not sit on the procurement panel.

“I did not award the contract. So anyone alleging that I manipulated that process has a simple responsibility: show the instruction I gave, show the intervention I made, and show the paragraph of the tribunal award where that corrupt influence was found.

“If the tribunal wanted to find that the $500,000 was a bribe paid to Atiku, it could have said so plainly. If it wanted to find that Atiku abused his office to procure the contract for Sunrise, it could have said so plainly.

“The APC cannot insert into an international arbitral award words and conclusions that the arbitrators themselves did not put there.”

‘TRIBUNAL DIDN’T SUMMON ME’

The ADC presidential candidate also dismissed allegations that he was summoned by the tribunal but decided to stay away from proceedings.

Atiku said the participation of two former presidents — Olusegun Obasanjo and late Muhammadu Buhari — in the tribunal’s proceedings did not translate to evidence that he was summoned.

“For the avoidance of doubt, I was not a party to the arbitration and I did not testify before the tribunal,” Atiku said.

“The reported contents of the award do not establish that the tribunal summoned me, ordered me to testify or found that I disobeyed any directive to appear.

“There is a world of difference between a party to an arbitration attempting to secure somebody’s testimony and the tribunal itself summoning that person to appear.

“Those distinctions matter. The APC cannot erase them simply because doing so makes for a more convenient headline.”

Atiku added that in his case, accusers are struggling to create allegation against him unlike the forfeiture of $460,000 by President Bola Tinubu in the US over alleged drug links.