•Atiku
Former vice president and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council of distorting the outcome of the Mambilla arbitration to portray him as having been indicted for corruption.
Atiku, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the APC had taken an arbitral award, removed what he described as its legal context and presented allegations examined during the proceedings as a corruption verdict against him.
He challenged the APC to produce the specific portion of the tribunal’s final award where it found that he received a $500,000 bribe, directed former Power Minister, Olu Agunloye, to award the Mambilla contract to Sunrise Power, abused his office or participated in a corrupt conspiracy.
According to him, no such finding exists in the award.
Atiku argued that the fact that he served as vice president under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration did not make him automatically responsible for every policy or decision taken by the government.
He cited his opposition to the controversial third-term bid under the Obasanjo administration as an example, saying his position at the time demonstrated that occupying an office did not mean endorsing or participating in every government decision.
“The same principle applies to Mambilla. 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,” Atiku said.
He challenged his accusers to produce evidence of any instruction or intervention by him in the procurement process and, specifically, the paragraph in the tribunal’s award where such influence was found to be corrupt.
Atiku also addressed the $500,000 transaction involving businessman Leno Adesanya, saying the tribunal examined the payment made through China Castle Investments to Jennifer Douglas.
He acknowledged that the tribunal rejected Adesanya’s explanation that the money arose from a foreign-exchange transaction because of a lack of supporting documentary evidence.
However, Atiku maintained that the rejection of Adesanya’s explanation did not amount to a finding that he personally received a bribe or corruptly influenced the award of the Mambilla contract.
“Rejecting Adesanya’s explanation, Atiku said, is fundamentally different from finding that Atiku received a bribe or corruptly used his office to secure the Sunrise contract,” the statement said.
He accused the APC of attempting to fill what he described as a gap between the evidence considered by the tribunal and the political conclusion it now wants Nigerians to accept.
“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,” he said.
The former vice president also rejected claims that he deliberately refused to appear before the tribunal after being summoned.
Atiku said he was not a party to the arbitration and did not testify before the tribunal, adding that the reported contents of the award did not establish that he had been summoned by the tribunal or ordered to give evidence.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I was not a party to the arbitration and I did not testify before the tribunal,” he said.
He noted that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former President Muhammadu Buhari testified on behalf of Nigeria during the proceedings, while former ministers Babatunde Fashola and Suleiman Adamu also participated in Nigeria’s defence.
According to Atiku, however, the appearance of those individuals could not be interpreted as proof that he himself had been summoned by the tribunal and refused to appear.
He further stressed that the arbitration proceedings were between Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, Leno Adesanya and the Federal Republic of Nigeria, rather than proceedings in which he was personally a party.
Atiku pointed out that the tribunal dismissed Sunrise’s claims and ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to reimburse Nigeria for 75 per cent of its legal fees and expenses.
He said no damages, costs or other liability were imposed on him personally.
Turning the argument against the APC, Atiku referenced a 1993 United States civil-forfeiture case involving President Bola Tinubu.
He said the distinction between an allegation and a formal judicial finding should apply equally to political opponents, arguing that the U.S. matter resulted in a judicial decree concerning funds held in an account in Tinubu’s name.
Atiku acknowledged that the U.S. proceeding was a civil forfeiture case involving property and not a criminal conviction of Tinubu personally for drug trafficking.
He nevertheless argued that there was a formal judicial order in that case, contrasting it with what he described as the absence of a comparable finding against him in the Mambilla arbitration.
“The same standard must apply to everyone. Do not convert allegation into conviction. Do not transfer findings from one person to another. Do not manufacture a verdict where none has been produced,” he said.
Atiku challenged the APC to publish the exact paragraphs of the Mambilla award on which its allegations against him were based.
He specifically demanded that the party identify any portion where the tribunal found that he solicited or received a bribe, instructed Agunloye to award the contract to Sunrise or was culpable of corruption in connection with the project.
“These are not questions of political opinion. They are questions of record. They have factual answers,” he said.
The ADC candidate said the controversy should not distract from issues he described as central to the 2027 presidential election, including the cost of living, employment, security and the effects of the Tinubu administration’s economic policies.
“Nigerians can read. Nigerians can distinguish allegation from adjudication. And Nigerians should not be asked to surrender their judgment to campaign propaganda,” Atiku said.
He concluded by insisting that the APC should stop presenting allegations surrounding the Mambilla arbitration as though they constituted an international tribunal’s corruption verdict against him.
“An allegation is not a finding. Suspicion is not proof. The rejection of one man’s explanation is not the conviction of another man.
“And no amount of political repetition can write into an arbitral award a verdict that the tribunal itself did not deliver,” he said.
