The Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), has urged the Federal Government to initiate proceedings against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over an undeclared $500,000 foreign transaction while in office.
The call follows revelations from a recent International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitration tribunal ruling in Paris regarding the disputed 3,960MW Mambilla Hydroelectric Power project.
According to the policy group’s analysis of the 616-page arbitral award in a policy statement signed by its Chairman Dr OmoniyiAkinsiju, a $500,000 transfer was executed on January 30, 2003, from an offshore shell company—China Castle Investments, owned by Sunrise Power promoter Leno Adesanya—directly into the US Citibank account of Atiku’s then-wife, Jennifer Douglas. The payment occurred just two weeks before Sunrise Power submitted its tender for the multi-billion-dollar Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract.
The Tribunal, thus, established 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.
While Atiku’s legal team has argued that the ICC issued no explicit bribery conviction against him, IMPI pointed out that the tribunal rejected the contractor’s claim that the payment was a domestic foreign-exchange swap, citing a complete lack of financial documentation and categorizing the timing as a major “red flag” for proxy bribery in the Mambilla Power concession bidding process.
Canvassing the trial of the former Vice President, Dr Akinsiju said, “Under Section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, public officers are strictly prohibited from maintaining foreign bank accounts.”
“If the former Vice President was the ultimate source of these foreign funds routed through a third-party offshore shell entity, or if he maintained undeclared foreign accounts to service his family abroad while in office as evidenced by Adesanya and his former wife, Jennifer, it constitutes a clear constitutional breach,” Akinsiju asserted.
Providing perspective to this revelation, IMPI reasoned that the ICC Tribunal report highlighted how off-record financial flows between government contractors and high-ranking public officials undermine institutional governance, regardless of formal administrative boundaries.
The review highlights that during the initial 2002–2003 concessioning period, preliminary negotiations for the Mambilla project systematically bypassed standard ministerial channels. This reflected in diplomatic cables from the US State Department reviewed during the Paris arbitral proceedings describing Adesanya, as an “Atiku insider” who enjoyed direct access to the executive branch and accompanied official state delegations to China.
IMPI emphasized that while Atiku Abubakar was not a direct signatory to the procurement panel, his position as Vice President granted him substantial informal leverage over state economic affairs.
The group argued that in public administration jurisprudence, undisclosed payments made to an official’s proxy near crucial procurement dates breach fundamental standards of transparency and commercial legitimacy.
“Even where direct quid-pro-quo instruction cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt in civil arbitration, the existence of unverified, off-record offshore transfers creates an untenable conflict of interest.
“It compromised the integrity of the original administrative process and set a dangerous precedent for major infrastructure concessions in Nigeria, ” the statement read.
On these counts, IMPI called on anti-corruption agencies to establish stronger institutional safeguards to prevent high-value infrastructure projects from being negotiated outside statutory ministerial frameworks.
In prospecting the manner of sanction that could be applied by the CCT on a former government official after a successful prosecution of the case, IMPI noted that while certain administrative sanctions no longer apply to former officials, the CCT retains statutory authority to order property forfeitures and impose a 10-year ban from holding public office, alongside potential criminal prosecution.
