Leno Adesanya, who promotes Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, could not show any documents or witness evidence to back his claim that a $500,000 payment to Douglas Abubakar, the former wife of ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, was a legitimate foreign-exchange deal.
This information comes from the Final Award released by the ICC on Thursday. The tribunal dismissed the claims made by Sunrise against Nigeria in the arbitration case.
The report revealed that the payment happened on 30 January 2003, just a few months before the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project contract was supposedly given to Sunrise by Olu Agunloye, who was the Minister of Power and Steel at that time.
The tribunal looked into Nigeria's claims of corruption regarding the supposed awarding of the Mambilla build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract. They included the $500,000 payment to Ms Abubakar and three other payments totaling about $15,000 that Mr Adesanya made to Mr Agunloye through his aide, Jide Sotinrin.
Both Sunrise and Mr Adesanya did not deny making these 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 stated in his fourth witness statement, as noted in the tribunal’s findings.
According to the tribunal, Mr Adesanya moved 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 pointed out that China Castle was under the control of Mr Adesanya.
Sunrise and Mr Adesanya argued that the payment was part of a foreign-exchange transaction done by Mr Adesanya for Atiku. They claimed Mr Adesanya ran a bureau de change business through Moneyline Ventures Limited, which allegedly had the necessary licence.
But the tribunal stated that there was no supporting documentary evidence for this explanation. "Sunrise and Mr Adesanya have not provided any documentary evidence to corroborate Mr Adesanya’s explanation of the foreign exchange transaction," the tribunal reported.
The tribunal mentioned that Mr Adesanya claimed his talks with Atiku or his staff about the transaction were only verbal. He stated that after more than twenty years, he no longer had access to any written discussions.
They said Mr Adesanya did not present documents showing the naira payment, the exchange rate used, instructions from Atiku or his aides, or any correspondence regarding the transaction. The tribunal also noted that neither Atiku nor Ms Douglas Abubakar gave a witness statement or declaration to back the explanation.
While looking at the payment, the tribunal evaluated Mr Adesanya’s relationship with Atiku and his role in trying to get the Mambilla project for Sunrise. The evidence showed that since 2001, Mr Adesanya lobbied the Nigerian government and worked closely with Atiku to secure the Mambilla project for Sunrise.
They also noted that Atiku led a Nigerian government team to Beijing in July 2002, which included Mr Adesanya. During that visit, the Nigerian government and the Chinese state-owned company NCPEC signed a memorandum of understanding about future cooperation, including the 2,600MW Mambilla project, which was estimated to cost $4.5 billion.
The tribunal highlighted the timing of the $500,000 payment and the later awarding 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 stated.
They added that Mr Adesanya’s claim that the payment was part of a foreign-exchange transaction "is not supported by any documentary or witness evidence other than his own."
The tribunal said the situation raised "significant red flags" about the payment and the supposed contract award. "Although these facts raise significant red flags with respect to the alleged quid, the alleged pro, and the desired quo," the tribunal said.
Yet, they clarified that they found no proof 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 helped the award of the contract to Sunrise," they said.
Despite the lack of evidence showing that Atiku used his official position to support the contract award, the tribunal could not accept Mr Adesanya’s claim that the $500,000 was a genuine foreign-exchange transaction.
"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," the tribunal stated.
The tribunal also looked into three payments totaling roughly $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 announced the award of the Mambilla BOT contract to Sunrise.
The tribunal said these payments were part of Nigeria’s corruption allegations linked to the supposed contract award. Both Sunrise and Mr Adesanya did not deny these payments and the tribunal examined the details surrounding them separately.
The Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project has faced development issues for decades, and it has been involved in various contractual, financial, and legal disputes. In 2003, Mr Agunloye awarded Sunrise Power a build-operate-transfer contract to develop a 3,050MW Mambilla hydropower plant at an estimated cost of about $6 billion.
This agreement expected Sunrise to finance and develop the project, recovering its investment through electricity sales over time. Later on, the legality of the award became a major 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. Mr Agunloye awarded it on 22 May 2003, soon after a meeting where the proposal was reportedly withdrawn.
Mr Agunloye has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges linked to the case. Sunrise later began 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 reached later, where Nigeria agreed to pay Sunrise $200 million. This agreement also included a 10 percent penalty if there was a default. Sunrise then filed another claim of $400 million related to the settlement, which increased to about $680 million with interest.
On Thursday, the ICC ruling dismissed the related claims, removing a possible exposure of over $3.38 billion. Efforts to contact Paul Ibe, Atiku’s spokesperson, were unsuccessful on Friday evening.
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