2017: APC PCC charges Atiku to withdraw over Paris ICC arbitration ruling

By Jude Opara

The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has declared the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, unfit to be President of Nigeria over his alleged involvement in the failed Mambila Hydroelectric Power Project.

Spokesman of the PCC Dele Alake in a statement on Friday, accused Atiku of using his then position as the Nigerian Vice President to influence the award of the project to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd, even when it didn’t have the capacity to execute it.

The International Arbitration Tribunal under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, recently gave ruling in favour of Nigeria in a case filed by Sunrise seeking the sum of $680m dollars as a settlement sum interest in respect of another arbitration in which it is claiming over $2.7 billion in compensation and interest relating to disputes associated with the development of the Mambilla Hydro Power project.

Alake, who is also the Minister of Solid Minerals alleged that Atiku through his former wife, Jennifer received the sum of $500,000 before he and the former Minister of Power, Dr. Olu Agunloye allegedly working in cahoots illegally signed the contract with Sunrise.

“Atiku Abubakar’s legendary corruption reverberated in Paris at the International Arbitration Tribunal under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Hearings in the arbitration filed by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Ltd (Sunrise) and Leno Adesanya over the stalled 3960mw Mambila Hydroelectric Power Project in Taraba State revealed that Abubakar and former power minister Olu Agunloye worked in cahoots to sign an illegal power contract with Sunrise.

“Atiku’s greed, however, propelled him to disobey the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and President Obasanjo, months after Leno Adesanya, through an offshore account, China Castle Investment, wired $500,000 to the US Citibank account of his now-divorced wife, Jennifer Douglas.

“The money arrived in tranches, raising red flags at Citibank and in the United States. The wired money and other suspicious transfers totalling $40 million surfaced in a US Senate investigation into Atiku and other corrupt leaders. In the US Senate report titled “Keeping Foreign Corruption out of the United States: Four Case Histories”, Jennifer said her husband sent the money. She said she was not familiar with the offshore company that wired the money”.

The PCC further described the alleged actions of Atiku as treasonable because Nigeria was to part with a whopping sum of $2.7 billion dollars in compensation and interest relating to the Mambila Hydro Power project.

“Atiku’s treasonable act, after the Nigerian government declined to go ahead with the illegal contract, led Sunrise and Leno Adesanya to make a claim against the Federal Republic of Nigeria, demanding $680 million as a settlement sum and interest in respect of another arbitration in which it is claiming over $2.7 billion in compensation and interest relating to disputes associated with the development of the Mambilla Hydro Power project.

“As the ICC Paris Tribunal concluded: “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”.

“Nigeria fought valiantly to dodge this huge liability, echoing a similar attempt by another rogue company, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID), to extract an $11 billion claim from our country for a phantom gas project in Akwa Ibom that the company did not spend a dime on.

“By collecting a $500,000 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”.

Alake further claimed that to avoid embarrassment, Atiku chose to stay away to give evidence in support of Sunrise and Leno Adesanya’s specious claim that the $500,000 was a foreign exchange transaction.

“The APC Campaign calls on Abubakar Atiku to do himself a rare honour by bowing out of the presidential race, as the $500,000 bribe is just the tip of the iceberg of the revelations to come about his monumental corruption”, the statement added.