$1.74m to Dasuki’s son, ‘medical’ cash for Agunloye, and Malami’s promised cut: How Sunrise chased Mambilla with cash

Leno Adesanya, founder of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, funnelled millions of dollars and naira through offshore firms, personal aides and relatives of powerful Nigerian officials while battling for control of the long-stalled Mambilla hydropower project. That is the damning picture painted by a final International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) arbitral award dated 16 September 2026.

The three-member Paris tribunal dismissed Sunrise’s multi-billion-dollar claims against Nigeria, ordered the company and Adesanya to reimburse the government roughly $11.82 million in legal costs plus a share of arbitration expenses, and described the promoter’s conduct in unusually blunt language. It found him personally responsible for a “decades-long campaign of bribery and corruption” involving payments — some very large — to officials linked to Mambilla or believed capable of influencing decisions on the project.

The money trail rarely ran straight to the officials themselves. It frequently passed through wives, children, assistants or associated companies.

Vehicles included China Castle Investments Limited, Lutin Investments Limited and Sunrise itself. Adesanya characterised the transfers variously as foreign-exchange deals, medical help, friendly loans, house renovations or restaurant investments. The tribunal rejected several of those explanations outright and found material inconsistencies in others.

For some transactions it identified “significant” or “serious red flags” without concluding that a specific official act was purchased. The clearest corruption finding concerned a different deal: an alleged promise by Adesanya to give then Attorney-General Abubakar Malami a cut of a proposed $200 million settlement. The tribunal held that Adesanya and Malami reached a corrupt agreement, even though no settlement money was ultimately paid after then President Muhammadu Buhari withheld approval.

$500,000 to Atiku’s then-wife
One of the earliest transfers examined was a $500,000 payment on 30 January 2003 from China Castle’s Swiss account to a Citibank account in the United States belonging to Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, then married to Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

The timing was striking. Adesanya had been lobbying intensively over Mambilla. In July 2002 Atiku had led a Nigerian delegation to China that produced a memorandum of understanding covering the project. Less than four months after the transfer, then Power and Steel Minister Olu Agunloye issued the 22 May 2003 letter on which Sunrise later based its claim to a build-operate-transfer contract.

Adesanya admitted the payment but insisted it was an ordinary foreign-exchange transaction conducted for Atiku through a bureau-de-change licence held by Moneyline Ventures. The tribunal found multiple problems: no contemporaneous documents supported a currency deal; neither Atiku nor Douglas gave evidence; China Castle (not Moneyline) made the transfer and held no foreign-exchange licence; and Adesanya’s explanations for the absence of supporting testimony shifted under cross-examination.

It concluded that the payment, its timing and Atiku’s governmental role created significant red flags, but said there was no proof that Atiku actually exercised official powers to secure the contract for Sunrise. The possibility of a link could not be excluded.

N5.2 million for Agunloye’s “medical treatment”
Sixteen years after Agunloye signed the controversial 2003 letter, Adesanya arranged three payments totalling about N5.2 million (then roughly $15,000) to the former minister through his personal assistant, Jide Sotinrin, in August, October and November 2019.

Nigeria had formally challenged the validity of the 2003 award in an earlier arbitration in July 2019. Agunloye was potentially Sunrise’s most important witness. Adesanya described the money as community-funded humanitarian aid for medical treatment and said his Nigerian accounts were frozen. The tribunal found substantial doubt: inconsistent evidence about medical documents, no proof of community contributions, no evidence of frozen accounts, and questions about why an intermediary was needed when Adesanya could transfer funds from Senegal.

It noted the long interval and the fact that the earlier arbitration settled before testimony, so it stopped short of a definitive finding that the payments were for the 2003 letter. Significant red flags remained, including the possibility that the cash related to Agunloye’s potential evidence. Agunloye is currently facing EFCC prosecution over the Mambilla contract.

N10 million routed to Yola via a ministry clerk
On 23 November 2015 — 13 days after he retired as solicitor-general — Lutin Investments transferred N10 million to Vincent Awaji, a former ministry of justice clerk and Yola’s assistant. The money was intended for Yola, who had represented the ministry during the 2012 general project execution agreement (GPEA) and related terms of settlement that conferred major benefits on Sunrise. He signed both documents.

Yola later directed the funds to various recipients, including a company Nigeria said was controlled by his son. Adesanya first called it a loan for house renovations and the establishment of a law practice, then revised his account after Yola told the EFCC he never requested or received a loan and never provided legal services. Explanations about the house and the use of an intermediary also conflicted.

The tribunal found Adesanya’s shifting positions “troubling.” The sum exceeded Yola’s pre-retirement annual salary, was routed indirectly, and followed his role in an agreement favourable to Sunrise. It identified clear indications of the official act potentially connected to the payment and said the red flags were not neutralised.

N25 million “restaurant investment” for a permanent secretary’s son
Between May 2015 and January 2016, Lutin transferred N25.01 million (about $135,000) to Tola Awosika and his company. Tola is the son of Dere Awosika, permanent secretary in the power ministry during the 2012 GPEA negotiations.

Adesanya said it was an investment in a restaurant business for the benefit of his daughters, who were friends with Tola. Share allotments and some dividend payments provided limited documentary support. But his account of how he met Tola changed repeatedly, and the tribunal questioned why the investment was placed in the daughters’ names when Adesanya supplied the capital and later responded to cash calls.

It found Awosika had substantive contacts with Adesanya during the GPEA process. The absence of a fully credible explanation, the amount involved and the official position of Tola’s mother raised serious red flags.

Insufficient evidence of a specific quid pro quo meant the tribunal treated the transaction as suspicious rather than a proven bribe.
$1.74 million to Sambo Dasuki’s son
On 16 December 2014 Sunrise transferred approximately $1.74 million to Abubakar Dasuki, son of then National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. Adesanya called it a loan so the younger Dasuki could join a quarry operation that would service Mambilla.

No credible, consistent explanation emerged. A claimed written loan agreement never materialised. The transaction was absent from Sunrise’s 2014 and 2015 statements of affairs. Bank records showed spending on school fees, aircraft charters and an $850,000 transfer to the Bob Oshodin Organisation; little or nothing appeared to have gone into quarry equipment.

The transfer formed part of a wider arrangement. In 2013 Adesanya incorporated an offshore company, Hydropower Investments Limited, whose shareholders were three of Sambo Dasuki’s children and which was to hold 10 million Sunrise shares. The tribunal described the creation of that structure as a “serious red flag.” It found no concrete evidence that the NSA intervened in the 2012 GPEA, but could not exclude the possibility that the $1.74 million was paid for influence.

The Malami settlement cut
The tribunal’s strongest corruption finding concerned former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami. In January 2020 Malami and then Power Minister Saleh Mamman signed a settlement under which Nigeria would pay Sunrise $200 million. A March 2020 addendum split the sum into two $100 million instalments and exposed Nigeria to a further $200 million default liability plus interest.

Adesanya testified that Malami and Mamman demanded 50 per cent of the settlement as bribes, structured so Nigeria would pay the first half and release the second after he did “what is needed.” He claimed to possess audio and video recordings but refused to produce them despite a tribunal order, citing safety concerns.

The tribunal drew an adverse inference. It found the payment structure in the addendum mirrored Adesanya’s own description of the alleged demand. It concluded that a corrupt deal was reached: Malami was promised a share of the settlement money (Adesanya’s evidence suggested up to $100 million) in return for cooperating in committing Nigeria to the addendum and coordinating procedural steps.

The settlement and addendum were products of corruption and unenforceable. No corresponding finding was made against Mamman because the withheld recordings were the only potential direct evidence of his role. The fact that Buhari never approved the deal did not erase the corrupt character of the promise.
Allegations involving three other officials — Zacchaeus Adeyanju, Oben Ogar and Tanko Yusuf — were rejected for lack of proof linking the benefits to Adesanya or to improper influence.

A pattern the tribunal said could no longer be ignored
The award did not reduce every payment to a proven quid pro quo. Evidential gaps remained concerning specific official acts allegedly purchased from Atiku, Agunloye, Awosika and Sambo Dasuki. What the arbitrators found unmistakable was the pattern: benefits extended to five senior officials or their family members at critical stages, repeatedly dressed up as undocumented loans, indirect transfers, offshore structures or friendly assistance.

That history, the tribunal said, made it more likely that Adesanya also offered Malami an improper benefit over the 2020 settlement.

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Sunrise’s $400 million claim was rejected. Nigeria’s separate damages counterclaim was dismissed for failure to prove the required causal link. On Adesanya’s conduct the tribunal was unrestrained: the Sunrise founder had repeatedly used payments and financial incentives while pursuing a project that never produced electricity for Nigeria but generated more than two decades of disputes, settlements and arbitration.

President Bola Tinubu has welcomed the ruling as clearing the single biggest legal hurdle to the 3,960 MW Mambilla project. The EFCC has reportedly set up a team to examine individuals named in the award. Adesanya has said his lawyers are reviewing the decision and that “the battle is not over.” Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has challenged claims that the tribunal found him guilty of corruption, insisting no such verdict was reached against him.

The money trail laid bare in Paris leaves little room for ambiguity about how one promoter sought to turn a stalled power project into a lucrative claim — and how, ultimately, the claim collapsed.