Atiku Abubakar and his former wife, Jennifer Douglas, have been thrust into the centre of the Mambilla hydropower controversy after Leno Adesanya, promoter of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, told an international arbitration tribunal that the $500,000 he transferred to Douglas in January 2003 was part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku. The claim directly connects the former vice-president to money paid to his then wife as negotiations around the Mambilla project gathered pace.
Podium Reporters gathered that the payment was made on January 30, 2003 less than four months before Sunrise was purportedly awarded a build-operate-transfer contract for the Mambilla hydropower project. Adesanya said the transfer was routed through China Castle Investments Limited, an offshore company he controlled. The combination of the date, the recipient and the claimed purpose places Atiku and Douglas squarely inside the financial trail that preceded the contract award, rather than at its margins.
In his account to the tribunal, Adesanya did not present the $500,000 as an ordinary personal transfer. He described it as a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku, meaning the former vice-president was, according to the testimony, the real party for whom the payment was made. Douglas, now Atiku’s former wife, was the recipient. The tribunal is therefore being asked to weigh evidence that links both Atiku and Douglas to a payment made while the Mambilla negotiations were ongoing.
The disclosure is significant because it ties the former vice-president’s name to a transaction that occurred shortly before Sunrise’s purported award of the Mambilla build-operate-transfer contract. The project, one of Nigeria’s most contested power schemes, has long attracted scrutiny over how contracts were awarded and who benefited. Adesanya’s testimony adds a new dimension: an alleged offshore payment, a former vice-president, his then wife, and a timeline that places the transfer less than four months before the contract was said to have been awarded.
It was revealed that China Castle Investments Limited, the offshore vehicle Adesanya controlled, was the channel for the $500,000. That detail matters because it suggests the payment was structured through a private offshore company rather than a conventional banking route. According to Adesanya, however, the transaction was not for him; it was for Atiku. The claim, as presented to the arbitration tribunal, paints Atiku and Douglas The allegations remain claims made in arbitration proceedings and have not been independently verified. But the thrust of Adesanya’s testimony is clear: the $500,000 sent to Jennifer Douglas in January 2003 was, in his words, a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku Abubakar, a claim that places the former vice-president and his ex-wife at the heart of the Mambilla payment controversy.