Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC) to produce the portion of the Mambilla arbitration award where the tribunal allegedly found him guilty of corruption or linked him to a $500,000 bribe.
Mr Atiku, in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, accused the ruling party of distorting the outcome of the arbitration and presenting allegations canvassed before the tribunal as though they amounted to a corruption verdict against him.
He said the APC had allegedly taken parts of the tribunal’s findings, stripped them of their legal context and used them to create what he described as a political narrative against him ahead of the 2027 general elections.
According to Atiku, the controversy centres on a $500,000 transaction transferred by Leno Adesanya through China Castle Investments to Jennifer Douglas, which was discussed during the arbitration.
He said the tribunal rejected Adesanya’s explanation that the transaction arose from a foreign-exchange deal because of the absence of documentary evidence supporting the explanation.
However, Atiku maintained that the rejection of Adesanya’s explanation did not amount to a finding that he personally received the money as a bribe or used his office to influence the award of the Mambilla contract to Sunrise Power.
“The APC cannot manufacture the missing finding simply because the actual award does not provide the political conclusion it desperately wants,” he said.
Atiku challenged the APC to identify the specific portion of the award where the tribunal found that he collected a $500,000 bribe, instructed former Minister of Power, Olu Agunloye, to award the contract to Sunrise, abused his office or participated in a corrupt conspiracy.
“There is no such finding,” he said.
“What the APC has done is intellectually dishonest. It has converted suspicion into guilt, an unexplained transaction into a proven bribe, and an allegation canvassed before arbitrators into a verdict the arbitrators themselves never delivered.”
Atiku also rejected the argument that his position as Vice President under former President Olusegun Obasanjo made him automatically responsible for decisions taken by the administration.
