The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council has accused African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar of compromising Nigeria’s national interest over revelations surrounding a $500,000 payment made to his then-wife, Jennifer Douglas, during negotiations over the disputed Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project.
In a statement signed by its spokesman, Dele Alake, on Friday, September 18, 2026, the council said findings from an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration in Paris had raised fresh questions about Atiku’s role in the controversial 3,960-megawatt project in Taraba State.
The ICC tribunal recently rejected claims by Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited and its promoter, Leno Adesanya, against Nigeria in the long-running Mambilla dispute. It also ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to reimburse Nigeria for 75 per cent of its legal fees and expenses, estimated at about $11.82 million.
A central issue examined by the tribunal was a $500,000 transfer made by Adesanya on January 30, 2003, through China Castle Investments Limited into Douglas’s Citibank account in the United States.
According to reports based on the tribunal’s final award, Adesanya acknowledged making the payment but maintained that it represented a foreign-exchange transaction conducted on behalf of Atiku.
The tribunal, however, found that the explanation was not supported by contemporaneous documentary evidence, including records of the underlying naira payment, exchange rate, instructions or correspondence. Neither Atiku nor Douglas testified before the tribunal.
The tribunal also considered the timing of the payment. The $500,000 transfer occurred less than four months before Sunrise was purportedly awarded a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla project in May 2003.
The APC council said the circumstances amounted to evidence of a connection between the payment and the contract process.
However, reports on the tribunal’s findings indicate that the award stopped short of establishing that Atiku personally received a bribe or that he used his official position to secure the contract.
The tribunal found that Atiku had considerable political influence in the federal government at the time but did not make a finding that he had actually exercised his office to procure the Sunrise contract.
The APC council nevertheless accused the former vice-president of putting personal interests ahead of the country and called on him to withdraw from the 2027 presidential contest.
Alake said the controversy surrounding the Mambilla project reinforced criticisms previously made against Atiku by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in his memoir, My Watch.
The council also linked the Mambilla dispute to the wider financial exposure Nigeria faced from claims arising from the stalled project. The ICC tribunal’s latest decision rejected Sunrise’s claims, including a demand connected to a $400 million settlement dispute, bringing relief to the Federal Government in the long-running arbitration.
The Mambilla project, conceived as a major hydropower development in Taraba State, has remained stalled for more than two decades amid disputes over the validity of the 2003 contract and subsequent arbitration proceedings.
The APC council further urged residents of Taraba State to consider the project’s history when assessing Atiku’s presidential candidacy, alleging that his actions contributed to the project’s failure to take off.
