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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
African Democratic Congress (ADC) Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC) to produce evidence that an arbitration tribunal found him guilty of corruption in respect of the Mambilla Power Project.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Friday, accused the APC of allegedly seeking to manufacture a corruption verdict against him, outside of the position of the tribunal.
The former vice president, who accused the APC Campaign Council of allegedly distorting the outcome of the Mambilla arbitration, said “ the ruling party has taken a tribunal award, amputated its legal meaning, stuffed the gaps with political propaganda and presented the result to Nigerians as a corruption verdict against him when no such verdict was delivered.”
According to him, “the facts should be stated without embellishment. The tribunal examined the $500,000 transferred by Leno Adesanya through China Castle Investments to Jennifer Douglas, rejected Adesanya’s explanation that it arose from a foreign-exchange transaction and expressed concerns about the absence of documentary evidence supporting that explanation.
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‘But rejecting Adesanya’s explanation, Atiku said, is fundamentally different from finding that Atiku received a bribe or corruptly used his office to secure the Sunrise contract.
“The APC cannot manufacture the missing finding simply because the actual award does not provide the political conclusion it desperately wants.
“Nigeria alleged before the tribunal that the transfer was connected to the disputed Mambilla contract. Sunrise and Adesanya denied that allegation. Adesanya offered an explanation, which the tribunal did not accept. But an unsuccessful explanation by Leno Adesanya does not automatically become a corruption verdict against Atiku Abubakar.
“If the tribunal wanted to find that the $500,000 was a bribe paid to Atiku, it could have said so plainly. If it wanted to find that Atiku abused his office to procure the contract for Sunrise, it could have said so plainly. The APC cannot insert into an international arbitral award words and conclusions that the arbitrators themselves did not put there.”
