Who really is Von Batten, the Nigerian-born lobbyist now working for Atiku?

Atiku Abubakar hired Washington-based lobbying firm *Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. under a $1.2 million, 12-month contract signed in March 2026.

Karl Von Batten, a Washington-based lobbyist hired by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in April 2026 to protect his “reputational standing” in the United States, is facing scrutiny over inconsistencies in his background, according to an investigation by TheCable. A Foreign Agents Registration Act filing showed the contract, signed on Atiku’s behalf by ADC chieftain Fabiyi Oladimeji, is worth $1.2 million annually, drawing criticism from supporters of Atiku’s 2027 rival, President Bola Tinubu.

On LinkedIn, Von Batten’s full name appears as “Karl-Marx Edward Ikemefuna William George Okeke-Von Batten,” blending British, German and south-east Nigerian roots. He has used different name variants across lobbying filings — “Karl Von Batten” for Atiku’s contract, but “Karl-Marx Okeke-Von Batten” in a 2022 filing for Somaliland’s Sool, Sanaag and Cayn regions.

A vocal Trump supporter and Republican Party member, Von Batten lists Oxford, Columbia, Harvard and NYIT as alma maters on LinkedIn, though an archived 2018 professional profile omitted Harvard and listed a Cornell certificate instead — a discrepancy TheCable is seeking to verify with the institutions.

Von Batten says he was working on the 39th floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower 1 during the 9/11 attacks, an experience he says drove him to enlist in the US military. He later served with the National Guard Bureau and across several US federal health and defence agencies.

Through his firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, he has lobbied on behalf of Somaliland’s SCC regions, Somalia’s fisheries ministry, Burundi, and most recently the Democratic Republic of Congo, pushing for international sanctions against Rwanda. In 2025, Rwanda’s embassy in Washington denounced as “a flat-out lie” his claims that President Paul Kagame had been disinvited from the US National Prayer Breakfast.