Mambilla: Atiku demands APC “produce the paragraph” or retract

“Produce the paragraph”: Atiku dares APC to back up its Mambilla corruption claim

ABUJA — Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has thrown down a pointed challenge to the All Progressives Congress (APC); produce the specific portion of the ICC arbitration tribunal’s final award that convicts him of corruption over the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project, or stop presenting mere allegations as a settled verdict.

ValidViewNetwork can confirm that the demand, issued through Atiku’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, was a direct response to the APC Campaign Council’s efforts to link Atiku to the controversy surrounding the 3,960-megawatt project and a disputed $500,000 payment involving Sunrise Power promoter Leno Adesanya.

This dispute traces directly back to the ICC tribunal’s 616-page final award delivered in Paris earlier this month, which found the 2020 Mambilla settlement negotiated under former Attorney-General Abubakar Malami to be tainted by corruption.

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ValidViewNetwork can confirm that Malami himself had pushed back against similar allegations.

Atiku argues the APC has taken that same tribunal finding and, in his words, manufactured “a verdict where none has been produced” against him personally.

According to reports gotten by ValidViewNetwork, Atiku insisted he was never a party to the arbitration and did not testify before the tribunal.

Furthermore, he submitted that the tribunal’s rejection of Adesanya’s explanation for the disputed payment is “fundamentally different” from a finding that Atiku himself received a bribe or influenced the contract’s award to Sunrise.

He challenged the APC to identify the exact paragraphs supporting its claims and publish them for Nigerians to examine directly.

ValidViewNetwork gathered that this is not the first time Atiku’s camp has demanded that opponents “produce evidence, not allegations”.

The same posture was deployed against former SGF Babachir Lawal’s claims of a rigged ADC primary earlier this year, which Atiku’s team dismissed for arriving with “no document, no petition, no result sheet.”

Whether the APC responds to this latest challenge with the specific tribunal citations Atiku is demanding, or continues pressing the broader Mambilla narrative regardless, will likely shape how the allegation follows him into the 2027 campaign season. ValidViewNetwork reports.

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