$500,000 was transferred to Atiku’s ex-wife months before controversial Mambilla contract award – Arbitration Tribunal

The promoter of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, Leno Adesanya, has admitted before an international arbitration tribunal that he transferred $500,000 to Jennifer Douglas — then wife of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar — in January 2003, claiming the payment was a foreign exchange transaction carried out on Atiku’s behalf rather than a bribe connected to the controversial Mambilla hydropower contract, according to a final award reviewed by TheCable.

The payment, made on January 30, 2003 through Adesanya’s offshore company China Castle Investments Limited, was transferred to Douglas’s Citibank account in the United States — less than four months before Sunrise was purportedly awarded a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla project.

“I confirm that I made a transfer of $500,000 to the Abubakars through my company China Castle Investments Ltd in early 2003,” Adesanya stated in his fourth witness statement before the three-member International Chamber of Commerce tribunal.

Adesanya maintained the transfer represented dollars purchased for Atiku with naira through his bureau de change business, Moneyline Ventures Limited, and had no connection to the Mambilla contract award.

The tribunal ultimately rejected Sunrise’s claims against Nigeria and ordered the company and Adesanya to reimburse most of Nigeria’s legal costs.

Nigeria had alleged during the proceedings that the $500,000 transfer was directly connected to the disputed contract award — an allegation Sunrise and Adesanya denied throughout.

Douglas was a central figure in the US corruption and money laundering investigation linking Atiku to William Jefferson, a convicted former US congressman. Atiku has consistently denied any wrongdoing. His media team had not responded to TheCable’s requests for comment at press time.