By Okoi Obono-Obla
The judgment of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Arbitration Tribunal dated 17 September 2026 in respect of the arbitration filed by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd against the Federal Republic of Nigeria over the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project, which was favourable to Nigeria, held that the Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo never approved the award of the contract to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd.
The Tribunal accepted Nigeria’s position, supported by the testimony of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and the late Muhammadu Buhari, that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) never authorised the 3,050MW Build-Operate-Transfer contract. The purported award letter of 22 May 2003 was issued by the then Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye, shortly after the proposal was stepped down at FEC. The Tribunal therefore found that Sunrise used chicanery and manipulation to claim that a valid contract had been awarded to it.
The Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at that time, Atiku Abubakar, came into focus when the Tribunal established as a fact that the Managing Director of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd, Mr. Leno Adesanya, transferred the sum of $500,000 on 30 January 2003 from the Swiss bank account of his offshore company, China Castle Investments Ltd, to a United States bank account belonging to Mrs. Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, then wife of the Vice-President.
This payment was made less than four months before the purported BOT award, and it was what emboldened Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd to believe that a contract had been entered into between it and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Mr. Adesanya admitted the payment in his fourth witness statement: “I confirm that I made a transfer of $500,000 to the Abubakars through my company China Castle Investments Ltd in early 2003.” He claimed it was a legitimate foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku through his bureau de change business, Moneyline Ventures Ltd.
The Tribunal rejected that explanation. It found that Sunrise and Adesanya provided no documentary evidence to corroborate it — no record of a naira payment, no exchange rate, no instructions, no correspondence — and noted that the money came not from Moneyline Ventures but from China Castle, which was not licensed to conduct foreign-exchange transactions. Crucially, neither Atiku Abubakar nor Mrs. Douglas Abubakar provided any witness statement or declaration to support the explanation.
Even though the Tribunal did not make a specific finding that the $500,000 was a bribe to Atiku Abubakar for the award of the contract, it held that the circumstances raised “significant red flags” with respect to the alleged quid (the undue advantage offered through the $500,000), the pro (a causal link to the desired use of influence), and the quo (the use of influence to grant the BOT contract to Sunrise).
It further stated: “There is a close connection in time between the moment the USD 500,000 payment was made to the wife of Vice-President Abubakar on 30 January 2003 and the alleged award of the BOT contract to Sunrise on 22 May 2003.” At the same time, it was careful to state 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,” and concluded that “it cannot exclude that the payment… was related to his leading role within the Nigerian Government from 2000 to 2003 for the Mambilla Project.”
This finding establishes a clear case of conflict of interest. The provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, especially the Code of Conduct for Public Officers in the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended), frown at a public officer being entangled in any transaction that will enmesh his position as a public officer in conflict with his official duties, or receiving benefits for himself or through proxies that compromise his office. A sitting Vice-President who was leading government efforts on the Mambilla Project from 2001 to 2003, whose family received a large offshore dollar payment from a bidder for the same project, fails that test of propriety.
Unfortunately, Atiku Abubakar is now the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2027 presidential election, and this development is a bad reflection on his integrity. Such a stain is telling and constitutes a drawback for him.
Conclusion:
The ICC Award of 17 September 2026 is therefore significant in two respects. First, it saved Nigeria from a combined exposure of over $3.38 billion and cleared the legal blockade to the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project. Second, it opens a new vista for equity in international economic law, demonstrating that tribunals will now interrogate the circumstances of contracts procured through irregular means. For any candidate seeking Nigeria’s highest office, the Tribunal’s documented findings on the $500,000 payment, its rejection of the forex explanation, and the unresolved conflict-of-interest question raise legitimate issues of integrity that cannot be ignored by the electorate.
