Mambilla Project arbitration: TDF aligns with Alake’s call for Atiku’s withdrawal from Presidential race

The Democratic Front (TDF) has thrown its weight behind calls by the Minister of Solid Minerals and Spokesman of APC Presidential Campaign Council, Mr. Dele Alake, for the withdrawal of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar from the presidential race on account of his questionable role in the illegal award of the stalled 3,960 Mambila Hydroelectric Power Project to Sunrise Power Transmission Company Limited in 2003.

In a statement signed by its Chairman Danjuma Muhammad and Secretary Wale Adedayo, TDF argued that the $500,000 payment made by the man who benefited from the illegal contract to the former Vice President’s wife was suspicious.

It said: “We acknowledge the validity of Dele Alake’s call against the backdrop of the ruling delivered by the ICC Arbitration tribunal in Paris, which adjudicated in the case of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company vs Federal Government of Nigeria, over the dispute on the stalled Mambila project, that indicted the ADC presidential candidate for working in cahoot with the former Power Minister Olu Agunloye to get illegal approval for the power project contract award to Sunrise Company through the backdoor in 2003.

“The loss of opportunity to boost the national grid with about 3,050 Megawatts of electricity from the Mambila Hydroelectric Power Project still haunts Nigeria through the socio-economic under development of the North.

“For us, the fact that the tribunal indicted Atiku Abubakar, simply lends credence to the general negative public perception about the former Vice President as a corrupt ex-public officer.

“Not too long ago, TDF issued a statement calling on Atiku Abubakar to come to equity with clean hands, before demanding for explanations on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s civil forfeiture incident which happened in the United States some 30 years ago. In that particular statement, TDF made references to the suspicious transfer of $`40 million into a Citibank account belonging to Atiku’s ex-wife, Jennifer Douglas Abubakar, initiated by different offshore companies allegedly linked to the former Vice President.

“Instructively, the ICC arbitration court ruling in Paris has opened a vista on why monies were suspiciously transferred by several offshore entities into Atiku’s former wife’s Citibank account, with the revelation that Leno Adesanya, through China Castle Investment, wired the sum of `$500,000 into Jennifer Douglas Abubakar’s account in the United States.

“More damning was the revelation that the illegal award of the Mambila Hydroelectric Power contract was made to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company that has no record of experience, or demonstrated expertise in the construction and operation of Hydroelectric Power Projects.

This is a case of gross contravention of Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act, betrayal of Fiducial Trust, desecration of the Code of Conduct for public officers, and abuse of the Presidential Oath of Office, by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

“Reports of Atiku Abubakar’s involvement in corruption, in our view, is legendary. The former Vice President and presidential candidate of ADC has attracted so much embarrassment to Nigeria, and the International Arbitration Tribunal ruling on the award of Mambila Hydroelectric Power Contract, is one too many.

“It is on the strength of the odium of Atiku’s iniquitous meddling in several corruption related cases and incidents, that we espouse the morally and legally canvassed position of Mr. Dele Alake, that former Vice President Abubakar should withdraw from the presidential race for the 2027 election to save Nigeria and its democracy any further embarrassment.”