Published 25th Mar, 2024

By Sodeeq Atanda

Arbitration filings related to the Mambilla Power Project have stated that Leno Adesanya, the chairman of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company, attempted to bribe Abubakar Malami, a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, and Suleiman Adamu, a former Minister of Water Resources, with women during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared Adesanya wanted in February over alleged conspiracy and corrupt offers to public officers, but the Abuja division of the Federal High Court recently restrained the agency from arresting him.

The private firm secured the $6 billion Mambilla hydropower contract from the federal government on May 22, 2003, on build, operate and transfer (BOT) terms. However, the government replaced the company with China Gezhouba Group Corporation/China Geo-Engineering Corporation after a while. This has led to a thorny, protracted legal battle between the parties, effectively preventing the new company from executing the 3,960WM contract.

At the International Court of Arbitration in France, Adesanya’s company is arguing that Nigeria failed to honour its contractual obligations. It is now seeking $2.3 billion in compensation against Nigeria.

In its defence briefs, the country has alleged that Adesanya has a history of exploiting the country’s weak institutions, bypassing legality through financial bribery and placing women on the table to lure government officials for sexual advantage, according to TheCable.

Screenshots of Adesanya’s WhatsApp chats, in which he sent pictures of smiling, beautiful young women to Adamu in November 2019 and Malami in November 2021, were attached by Nigeria’s legal representatives to the documents seen by TheCable.

A snapshot of Adesanya’s WhatsApp chats with ministers Source: TheCable

“Mr. Adesanya repeatedly sought to undermine Nigeria’s defence of this arbitration by all means possible without regard to legality. As detailed below, Mr. Adesanya attempted to bribe the former Minister of Water Resources, Mr. Suleiman Adamu, in the lead-up to the settlement meeting between Sunrise and Nigeria in London on 9 November 2019 by offering him money and women, and sought to bribe the former Attorney General of Nigeria and Abubakar Malami, also with money and women, in order to take decisions favourable to Sunrise and influence Nigeria’s defence in this Arbitration,” the document reads in part.

“A look at the pictures of smiling young women whom Mr. Adesanya blithely offered to Mr. Adamu in November 2019 during the settlement discussions and latterly the Attorney General as inducements can leave no doubt about Mr. Adesanya’s character.

“The below extract of Mr. Adesanya’s WhatsApp message to Mr. Malami with a picture of a woman in November 2021, when Mr. Adesanya was lobbying Nigeria, is illustrative.

“He wrongfully procures contracts that his companies are incapable of performing, colludes with key government officials to obtain confidential government documents, creates a semblance of credibility through document exchanges with government officials, files claims against the government, and then unlawfully seeks to pressure the government to enter into settlement agreements with his companies in order to obtain a pay-out.

“Adesanya has been successful in obtaining contracts and bringing about settlement negotiations with the Nigerian Government on many occasions in the past. He has a track record of questionable settlements, and not contract delivery.

“As regards Sunrise, Adesanya:

succeeded in getting a Minister of Power, Dr. Olu Agunloye, who is currently collaborating with Sunrise/Mr. Adesanya, to issue Sunrise an award letter contrary to the decision of the Federal Executive Council (“FEC”) chaired by the President of Nigeria;

succeeded in engineering another settlement negotiation leading to the signing of the Terms of Settlement and General Project Execution Agreement (“GPEA”) in 2012 between Sunrise and Nigeria;
succeeded in engineering yet another settlement negotiation leading to the signing of the Terms of Settlement and Addendum to the Term[s] of Settlement (the “Settlement Agreements”) between Sunrise and Nigeria in 2020;
almost succeeded in obtaining a pay-out from the Nigerian Government, but for the refusal of the Former President of Nigeria, President Buhari, to approve the settlement and the Ministry of Justice’s vigorous defence of this.

“In all of these settlement deals, Mr. Adesanya, advised by his consortium of Nigerian and French law firms, insist on well-crafted arbitration clauses, in order to clothe those deals with legitimacy and provide the basis to file claims against Nigeria and in furtherance of his ‘arbitration business’. That is Mr. Adesanya’s stock in trade: he simply finishes one settlement deal with the Nigerian Government and moves on to the next.

“President Buhari captured this vice well when he commented, in relation to the decision of the English Court in the P&ID case, and said: ‘It was definitely worth the struggle: this [P&ID] was an attempted heist of historic proportions, an attempt to steal from the treasury a third of Nigeria’s foreign reserves. But even at this moment, we should note what the English judge cautioned. The arbitration process in London ‘was a shell that got nowhere near the truth.’ We need better contracts, in the public and private sector. And we need greater transparency: the reality is that had P&ID not conjured up quite such an outlandish ransom, they may have found themselves in the same place as the myriad other invisible contractors who all too often quietly take Nigeria for many millions in out-of-court settlements’.

“However, the price they wanted was unacceptable to President Buhari, who saw a parallel between Sunrise’s claim in this Arbitration and P&ID Nigeria and therefore refused to approve any settlement deal with Sunrise.”

INTERFERENCE

The government has also claimed that Adesanya interfered with the arbitration by inviting the EFCC to investigate country’s counsel handling it.

“He even called for Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (“EFCC”) to investigate Nigeria’s counsel in this arbitration for filing a request for security for costs against Sunrise,” Nigeria stated its in defence.

“Adesanya has actively tried to interfere with and prevent EFCC’s investigation into his and Sunrise’s involvement in the Mambilla Project by contacting witnesses who were invited for interview either directly or through his proxies and using his Nigerian counsel, BA Law, to coordinate this Arbitration and the satellite court action filed in Nigeria to block EFCC’s investigation.

“He also contacted Mr. Zaccheaus Adeyanju, the Director of the Solicitors Department at the Ministry of Justice, who was in charge of the Sunrise files at the Ministry of Justice and the preparation of the Settlement Agreements, following his invitation by EFCC. Mr. Adeyanju then deleted all email correspondence between him and Mr. Adesanya to prevent EFCC and this Tribunal from seeing the content of those emails as well as certain documents on his phone.

“The above is in addition to the evidence showing that Mr. Adesanya made payments to the Minister who purportedly awarded the contract to Sunrise without the approval of the FEC chaired by the President of Nigeria. He also made payments to senior Government officials who were involved in the negotiation and signing of a memorandum of understanding titled General Project Execution Agreement (the “GPEA”) in 2012, and has corrupted a number of Government officials who were involved in the preparation and signing of the Terms of Settlement and Addendum to Terms of Settlement in 2020.

“There can be no doubt that Sunrise/Adesanya’s involvement in the Mambilla Project was procured and sustained through collusion with and bribery of senior officials of the Government of Nigeria, as well as fraudulent acts against Nigeria. Mr. Adesanya has made a career out of exploiting his connections to individuals within the Nigerian Government and his understanding of the government’s failings to extract and extort money from his own country, Nigeria.”

A $200 million settlement deal was allegedly entered with the company in 2020, but Buhari has told Lateef Fagbemi, the current justice minister, that he did not authorise such an agreement.

“While I understood that my ministers of justice, power and water resources were approached by Sunrise and were engaging with various stakeholders that were involved in the project to resolve the issues blocking the project’s implementation, at no time did I specifically instruct them to enter into and conclude any settlement agreement with Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited,” Buhari wrote.

“Indeed, when the proposed settlement agreement and addendum were presented to me for my consideration and approval on 20th April 2020, I refused to approve the settlement deal because I was convinced that there was no basis for Sunrise’s claim.”

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