Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council has declared former Vice President Atiku Abubakar unfit to lead Nigeria and demanded his immediate withdrawal from the 2027 presidential race, escalating a bitter political confrontation triggered by the International Chamber of Commerce arbitration ruling on the long-stalled Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project.
In a statement issued on Friday and signed by its spokesman, Dele Alake, the campaign council accused the African Democratic Congress presidential candidate of compromising Nigeria’s national interests for personal gain, citing a five-hundred-thousand-dollar payment made by Sunrise Power promoter Leno Adesanya to Atiku’s then-wife, Jennifer Douglas, in January 2003. The payment was made through China Castle Investment, an offshore company controlled by Adesanya, and came less than four months before a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla project was purportedly awarded to Sunrise on May 22, 2003. “Abubakar’s legendary corruption reverberated in Paris at the International Arbitration Tribunal under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce,” the statement said. The council alleged that Atiku and former Minister of Power Olu Agunloye “worked in cahoots” to secure the contract for Sunrise despite objections from then-President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Federal Executive Council. It also accused Atiku of avoiding testimony before the tribunal, contrasting his absence with the appearances of former Presidents Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari as witnesses for Nigeria, and cited Obasanjo’s criticisms of Atiku in his memoir, “My Watch”. “By collecting a five-hundred-thousand-dollar bribe from Leno Adesanya to approve a Build-Operate-Transfer contract to a company with no scintilla of experience in hydro power generation, Atiku has proven he is one of the enablers of local and international predatory and exploitative entities out to defraud our country,” the council alleged. Alake described the payment as “just the tip of the iceberg” of revelations to come.
The ICC tribunal’s ruling, delivered on September 17, 2026, was a significant legal victory for Nigeria. The three-member panel rejected Sunrise Power’s claims against the Federal Government, including a six-hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar settlement demand and a separate compensation claim exceeding two-point-seven billion dollars. The tribunal ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to reimburse Nigeria for seventy-five per cent of its legal fees and expenses, estimated at eleven-point-eight-two million dollars. However, the tribunal did not find that Atiku personally received the five-hundred-thousand dollars or that he directed the payment. Adesanya told the tribunal the money was part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku, but the tribunal found this explanation was not supported by contemporaneous documentation, including evidence of the underlying naira payment, the exchange rate used, or instructions from Atiku or his aides. Neither Atiku nor Douglas testified to corroborate the explanation.
Atiku responded swiftly and forcefully, accusing the APC of deliberately distorting the outcome of the arbitration to manufacture a corruption verdict that the tribunal never delivered. In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku challenged the APC to produce the exact portion of the final award where the tribunal found that he collected a bribe, instructed Agunloye to award the contract to Sunrise, abused his office, or participated in a corrupt conspiracy. “There is no such finding,” Atiku said. “What the APC has done is intellectually dishonest. It has converted suspicion into guilt, an unexplained transaction into a proven bribe, and an allegation canvassed before arbitrators into a verdict the arbitrators themselves never delivered. That is not an interpretation of the award. It is a political fabrication”. He argued that an unsuccessful explanation by Adesanya did not automatically become a corruption verdict against him, and insisted he was not a member of the procurement panel that awarded the Mambilla contract. Atiku said the controversy should not distract Nigerians from the issues that would ultimately decide the 2027 election, including the cost of living and economic hardship.
The Mambilla project itself has been mired in controversy for more than two decades. First conceived in the 1970s and initially planned as a three-thousand-and-fifty-megawatt facility, the project was later expanded to three-thousand-nine-hundred-and-sixty megawatts. The disputed contract was awarded on May 22, 2003, by then Minister of Power Olu Agunloye to Sunrise Power on a build-operate-and-transfer basis. The EFCC’s investigation alleges the contract was awarded without approval from the National Executive Council, which was chaired at the time by Obasanjo, and that the award involved favouritism because Adesanya and Agunloye were longstanding associates. Agunloye is currently being prosecuted before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on an amended seven-count charge bordering on alleged official corruption and the fraudulent award of the Mambilla contract. He has pleaded not guilty.
The political stakes could hardly be higher. The 2027 presidential election is less than four months away, with the presidential and National Assembly elections scheduled for January 16, 2027. Atiku is seeking the presidency on the platform of the African Democratic Congress, with Rabiu Kwankwaso as his running mate. President Bola Tinubu is seeking a second term, and the APC campaign council’s demand for Atiku’s withdrawal is part of a broader effort to frame the election as a choice between accountability and corruption. The dispute has also drawn in the Presidency, with the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, challenging Obi to quit the race if the debt claims were proven, and the Special Adviser on Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, promising that more records would be released in the coming days.
For now, both sides remain entrenched. The APC says the arbitration proceedings have exposed Atiku’s role in a corrupt transaction that cost Nigeria dearly. Atiku says the APC is fabricating a verdict the tribunal never issued. The tribunal’s final award, which neither side has published in full, remains the central document in the dispute. Until its findings are subjected to independent scrutiny, the battle over what the arbitrators actually decided will continue to be fought in the media and on the campaign trail, with each side presenting its own version of the truth. What is certain is that the Mambilla scandal has become the defining issue of the early 2027 campaign, and the coming weeks will determine whether it damages Atiku’s candidacy or rebounds against those who sought to use it against him.
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