The International Chamber of Commerce last week rescued Nigeria from yet another set of predators determined to suck the last drop of blood still running in the country’s economic veins. It rejected the criminal claim for damages for a breach of contract to the tune of USD 2.35 billion by Sunrise Power Transition Company, an organisation owned by Nigerian-born Leno Adesanya. The ICC also rejected the settlement claim of USD 400 million by Sunrise and ordered it to pay Nigeria’s legal expenses of USD 11.82 million. While USD 11 million may not look like a huge amount of money for a country to forfeit, USD 2.35 billion is, by all standards, a lot to lose, especially to faceless groups of international fraudsters.
All the way from Paris, France, the ICC saved Nigeria from the embarrassment of being dragged before another international body and being brazenly robbed with the apparent imprimatur of international law. We appear before such bodies ill-prepared and without the heart to fight for what is rightfully ours, betrayed already by children, actually bastards, spawned from the loins of prostitutes. Those who exploit us in this manner know us for who we are: a people lacking any strand of patriotic fibre to fight for the good of their country. We are the first to say the worst things about Nigeria, and since foreigners know this about us, it takes them little or no effort to persuade us to join in the brutal rape of our land. Yet those who have the responsibility to save us from such gross violations either look away or go into the fight half-heartedly and unprepared to do what it takes to restore the country’s honour.
We saw this in the way the Bakassi Peninsula was given away and eventually lost to Cameroon. Even when it comes to the issue of defending the country’s interests or citizens against foreigners or foreign interests, Nigeria takes a laid-back attitude. It was what played out in the Nigeria versus Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) case that the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom ruled on less than a year ago. For the best part of nearly 15 years, Nigeria looked on as criminal businesspeople dragged her across foreign courts and arbitration bodies. It was not until 2022 or thereabouts, when assets such as aircraft and others were being seized and the country was being embarrassed around the world, that the Muhammadu Buhari government decided to take the fight to the criminal aggressors. Anyone looking at the manner in which Nigeria was being disgraced could not have hesitated to conclude that the country was as guilty as charged. But the moment we decided to take more than a passing interest in the case, the tide changed.
P&ID was a shell company. It dubiously won a 20-year Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) contract in 2010 to help harness and refine Nigeria’s large deposit of “wet” gas that was being flared. Since this agreement was never meant to be executed, neither party to the agreement acted on it. This was the case until P&ID decided to initiate a legal process against Nigeria for the breach of a contract that was not only fraudulently won but was also never intended to be executed. The London tribunal to which Nigeria was dragged ordered the country to pay P&ID USD 6.6 billion, which soon grew to USD 11 billion in damages. It was after this that Nigeria, through the EFCC, chose the path of legal challenge and ultimately won a reprieve through the wise Justice Robin Knowles of the English High Court. The judge set aside the tribunal ruling and was able to show that the original contract awarded to P&ID was fraudulently obtained through the corrupt enrichment of Nigerian officials. On October 22, 2025, the British Supreme Court finally dismissed P&ID’s appeal and ordered it to pay Nigeria’s legal costs of GBP 44 million.
In the Sunrise–Mambila Hydropower Project, the Federal Executive Council expressly rejected Sunrise’s bid to construct a 3,050-megawatt hydroelectric power station. It was to be located in Kakara Village, on the Donga River, around Gembu, on the Mambila Plateau in Taraba State. Despite the FEC’s rejection, the then Minister of Power, Olu Agunloye, allegedly gave Sunrise, a near-bankrupt shell company with no expertise in hydropower, the go-ahead for the project.
The names of Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, and Abubakar Malami, attorney-general and minister of justice under the Buhari administration, appeared in the Mambila Hydroelectric Power Project case at the ICC.
Malami has already forfeited assets worth billions of naira to the Federal Government of Nigeria in diverse cases. He basically sold Nigeria to Sunrise in his advocacy that $400 million, rather than $200 million, be paid as damages to Sunrise. It did not matter to Malami that Nigeria was bleeding financially or that the reputation of President Muhammadu Buhari, his principal, as a man of integrity, was at stake. Both President Muhammadu Buhari and President Olusegun Obasanjo were present at the ICC’s hearing and testified on behalf of Nigeria in 2023.
Rather than address the integrity issue raised by the Paris court, Atiku Abubakar continues to shadow-box and has dismissed it as political. In his press conference last week, he spoke on everything except the issue.
Atiku is still dancing around the issue of his role in the Mambila–Sunrise business. What is political about this? Throughout his political and civil service career, the former VP has had to contend with issues of probity. The ICC case has only brought home the point more forcefully, and he must respond to it if he knows he is clean.
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