The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) tribunal that rejected Sunrise Power’s $400 million claim against Nigeria has also shed new light on the financial dealings of the company’s founder, Leno Adesanya, during his long-running pursuit of the Mambilla hydropower project.
In its final award dated September 16, 2026, the tribunal examined millions of dollars and naira paid by Adesanya through companies, intermediaries and relatives of influential government officials.
The transactions involved people connected to former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, former Power Minister Olu Agunloye, former Solicitor-General of the Federation Abdullahi Yola, former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Power Dere Awosika and former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki.
But the tribunal drew an important distinction: it did not conclude that every questionable payment was a bribe.
In several cases, it found serious or significant red flags but said there was insufficient evidence to establish that a particular official had performed a specific act in exchange for the money.
The clearest corruption finding concerned former Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, whom the tribunal found had entered into a corrupt arrangement with Adesanya over a proposed $200 million settlement.
$500,000 payment to Atiku’s former wife
One of the transactions examined was a $500,000 payment made to Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, who was then married to Atiku Abubakar.
On January 30, 2003, China Castle Investments Limited, an offshore company controlled by Adesanya, transferred the money from a Swiss bank account to Douglas’s Citibank account in the United States.
The payment came at a sensitive time. Atiku had led a Nigerian delegation to China in July 2002, where a memorandum of understanding concerning the proposed Mambilla hydropower project was signed.
Less than four months after the payment, Agunloye issued the May 22, 2003 letter on which Sunrise later based its claim that it had been awarded the Mambilla build-operate-transfer contract.
Adesanya said the $500,000 was simply part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku through Moneyline Ventures Limited.
The tribunal rejected that explanation.
It noted that Adesanya produced no contemporaneous document showing that the payment was a currency transaction. He also failed to produce the foreign-exchange licence he said Moneyline possessed.
More importantly, the money was not transferred by Moneyline but by China Castle, which neither had a foreign-exchange licence nor listed currency trading among its corporate purposes.
Despite these concerns, the tribunal stopped short of finding that the $500,000 was a bribe.
It said the timing of the payment, Atiku’s role in the Mambilla process and the circumstances surrounding the transaction created significant red flags. However, there was no evidence that Atiku actually used his governmental powers to secure the contract for Sunrise.
N5.2m paid to Agunloye
The tribunal also examined three payments totalling about N5.2 million made to former Power Minister Olu Agunloye in 2019.
The payments were:
- N3.6 million on August 10, 2019;
- N500,000 on October 22, 2019; and
- N1.121 million on November 13, 2019.
The payments were made through Adesanya’s assistant, Jide Sotinrin.
The timing was significant because Nigeria had challenged the validity of the alleged 2003 Mambilla award in July 2019. Agunloye, who signed the controversial letter, was potentially an important witness in the dispute.
Adesanya described the payments as humanitarian assistance to help Agunloye with medical treatment.
He said members of his community contributed the money and that Sotinrin handled the transfers because his Nigerian bank accounts had been frozen.
The tribunal found substantial gaps in that explanation.
It said Adesanya gave inconsistent evidence about the medical records he claimed to have received, while no sufficient evidence was produced to establish that the payments actually went towards Agunloye’s treatment.
There was also no contemporaneous evidence showing that members of Adesanya’s community had contributed the money.
Still, the tribunal did not conclusively find that the payments were made in exchange for Agunloye’s 2003 letter. It pointed to the 16-year gap between the letter and the payments and the absence of evidence of other payments during the intervening period.
N10m payment involving former Solicitor-General’s son
Another transaction involved N10 million paid to Vincent Awaji, a former clerk and assistant to Abdullahi Yola, who had served as solicitor-general of the federation.
On November 23, 2015, just 13 days after Yola retired, Lutin Investments Limited, one of Adesanya’s companies, transferred the money to Awaji for Yola’s benefit.
The money was later distributed to several recipients, including Seabright Capital Limited, a company Nigeria said was controlled by Yola’s son, Buhari Abdullahi Yola.
Adesanya initially described the payment as a loan to help Yola renovate his house and establish a law practice. He later suggested that Yola could repay the money through legal services.
Yola, however, told the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission that he had neither requested nor received a loan from Adesanya and had never provided legal services to him.
Adesanya subsequently described parts of his earlier account as an error, while also giving conflicting evidence about the purpose of the payment.
The tribunal said it was not persuaded that his explanation was truthful and described his repeated changes of position as troubling.
It also noted that the N10 million was more than Yola’s annual salary before retirement, was routed through an intermediary and came after his involvement in the 2012 General Project Execution Agreement and related settlement documents.
Unlike some of the other transactions, the tribunal identified a possible connection between the payment and official acts that benefited Sunrise.
It said Yola had provided legal advice in favour of the settlement and had played a direct role in executing the GPEA and related terms.
N25m ‘restaurant investment’ involving permanent secretary’s son
The tribunal also examined about N25.01 million transferred between May 2015 and January 2016 to Tola Awosika and his company, 355 Integrated Services Limited.
Awosika was the son of Dere Awosika, who was permanent secretary in the Ministry of Power during the negotiation and execution of the 2012 GPEA.
The payments included N13 million in May 2015, N12 million in June 2015 and N10,000 in January 2016.
Adesanya said the money was an investment in Tola’s restaurant business, made for the benefit of his daughters, who he said were friends with Awosika.
There was some documentary evidence supporting the existence of an investment. Adesanya’s daughters were allotted shares in a related hospitality company and later received dividends.
However, the tribunal questioned Adesanya’s changing explanations about how he met Awosika and why the investment was structured in his daughters’ names when he provided the funds and later responded to cash calls.
The tribunal also found that Awosika had substantive contacts with Adesanya in connection with the Mambilla process.
It described the transaction as raising serious red flags but did not find sufficient evidence that Awosika took a specific action in exchange for the investment.
$1.74m paid to Dasuki’s son
One of the largest payments examined was approximately $1.74 million transferred by Sunrise to Abubakar Dasuki, son of former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, on December 16, 2014.
Adesanya described the money as a loan intended to enable Abubakar Dasuki to participate in a quarry business that would supply the Mambilla project.
The tribunal found the explanation unconvincing.
Adesanya initially said there was a written loan agreement but later admitted that such an agreement was probably never signed. The purported loan was also absent from Sunrise’s statements of affairs for 2014 and 2015.
Abubakar Dasuki gave a different account, saying the money was needed for personal matters as well as a proposed quarry.
Bank records showed that some of the money was spent on school fees and aircraft charters, while $850,000 was transferred to the Bob Oshodin Organisation.
The tribunal found no evidence that a substantial portion of the money was used to acquire equipment or other resources for the proposed quarry.
It also examined Hydropower Investments Limited, an offshore company incorporated by Adesanya in the British Virgin Islands in 2013. Three of Sambo Dasuki’s children were listed as shareholders, while Adesanya and Abubakar Dasuki were directors.
The incorporation documents stated that the company would own 10 million shares in Sunrise.
Although Adesanya said the proposed share transfer was conditional on Abubakar becoming involved in Mambilla and never took effect, the tribunal could not establish whether the shares were ever transferred.
It described the creation of the offshore company and the proposed shareholding as a serious red flag.
However, it found no concrete evidence that Sambo Dasuki intervened in the 2012 GPEA process or used his office to assist Sunrise.
The Malami deal
The tribunal’s most direct corruption finding involved former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami.
In January 2020, Malami and then Power Minister Saleh Mamman signed a settlement under which Nigeria was to pay Sunrise $200 million.
An addendum signed in March 2020 divided the payment into two $100 million instalments and exposed Nigeria to a further $200 million default payment, in addition to interest.
Adesanya told the tribunal that Malami and Mamman had demanded that he pay half of the settlement as a bribe.
He said he rejected the demand and claimed to have audio and video recordings of the conversations.
However, despite an order to produce the recordings, Adesanya refused to hand them over, citing concerns about the safety of himself and his family.
The tribunal drew an adverse inference from his refusal.
It also noted that the structure eventually inserted into the settlement addendum — an initial $100 million payment followed by the release of another $100 million — was consistent with Adesanya’s description of the alleged demand.
The tribunal concluded that Adesanya and Malami had reached a corrupt agreement.
It found that Malami had cooperated in committing Nigeria to the addendum and had signed terms capable of exposing the country to a potential $400 million liability.
The tribunal therefore held that the settlement agreement and addendum were products of corruption and were unenforceable.
No settlement money was ultimately paid because former President Muhammadu Buhari did not approve the arrangement.
The tribunal nevertheless held that the fact that the payment was never completed did not remove the corrupt character of the agreement, because the promised improper benefit itself was sufficient.
Other allegations were not proved
The tribunal also considered allegations involving justice ministry official Zacchaeus Adeyanju, lawyer Oben Ogar and Tanko Yusuf, an aide to former Power Minister Mamman.
In Adeyanju’s case, the tribunal found no evidence linking approximately $107,113 in deposits and foreign-exchange transactions to Adesanya or Sunrise.
It also found no evidence connecting Adesanya to about $3,700 transferred by Adeyanju to Ogar.
The allegations against Ogar were therefore dismissed for lack of evidence.
Yusuf’s case involved travel and accommodation expenses paid by Adesanya while Yusuf transported the signed settlement to Mamman. Adesanya also gave Yusuf an amount in pounds sterling in London, which Nigeria estimated at £5,000.
Although the tribunal considered the arrangement curious, it found that the flights and accommodation could be regarded as professional expenses. It also found insufficient evidence to establish the amount of cash Yusuf received or that he exercised substantive influence over the settlement.
A pattern of financial dealings
The tribunal’s findings did not establish that every payment examined was a bribe.
For Atiku, Agunloye, Awosika and Sambo Dasuki, the arbitrators identified serious concerns and evidential gaps but stopped short of conclusively finding that the payments were made in exchange for specific official actions.
However, the tribunal said the transactions revealed a broader pattern of Adesanya using payments and financial incentives while pursuing the Mambilla project.
It ultimately rejected Sunrise’s $400 million claim against Nigeria and ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to reimburse the Nigerian government $11.82 million in legal expenses and $414,125 in arbitration costs.
Nigeria’s separate claim for damages was dismissed because the government failed to establish the required causal connection between the corruption findings and the losses it claimed.
The tribunal’s final assessment was that Adesanya had repeatedly used payments and financial incentives in his pursuit of a project that never generated electricity for Nigeria but instead became the subject of more than two decades of disputes, settlements and arbitration. /First reported by TC