Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Dele Alake’s latest political broadside against Atiku Abubakar over the Mambilla arbitration is a remarkable demonstration of how a complicated legal proceeding can be stripped of its context, sprinkled with political adjectives and served to the public as something it never was.
Alake apparently entered the newsroom carrying Nigeria’s victory and somehow emerged carrying an imaginary indictment of Atiku Abubakar.
Give Alake a complicated arbitral award, remove the inconvenient qualifications, add a $500,000 transaction, sprinkle the word “bribe” over it, add “treasonable act” for flavour, and suddenly an arbitration between Sunrise Power and the Federal Republic of Nigeria becomes an imaginary criminal conviction of Atiku Abubakar.
This is how cocaine is made to look like sugar.
The first problem is the ICC itself.
Alake’s statement repeatedly presents the matter as an “International Arbitration Tribunal under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)” and speaks of an “ICC Paris Tribunal” as though the International Chamber of Commerce itself were a criminal court sitting in Paris to prosecute Atiku.
That is a rather unfortunate institutional shortcut for somebody attempting to build a political prosecution out of a legal proceeding.
ICC, in this context, is the abbreviation for the International Chamber of Commerce. Its arbitration institution is the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, while the particular dispute is determined by an arbitral tribunal constituted under the ICC arbitration framework.
Those distinctions matter.
The tribunal that issued the award was not a criminal court established to determine whether Atiku Abubakar was fit to contest the Nigerian presidency. It was an arbitral tribunal dealing with a dispute involving Sunrise Power, Leno Adesanya and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The actual award rejected Sunrise’s claims against Nigeria and ordered Sunrise and Adesanya to reimburse Nigeria for a substantial portion of its legal costs.
Yet Alake takes that Nigerian victory and somehow manufactures a presidential indictment from it.
Perhaps in the APC Campaign Council’s version of the legal dictionary, ICC now means “International Court for Convicting Candidates.”
But the real problem is not merely Alake’s loose handling of the ICC nomenclature. It is what he does with the evidence.
Atiku Abubakar was never indicted in the Mambilla arbitration. He was not a party to the arbitration. He was not prosecuted before the tribunal. He was not convicted. He was not ordered to pay anything. And, critically, the tribunal did not establish that Atiku personally received a bribe.
But there is an even more fundamental point which Alake’s statement appears determined to conceal: the tribunal did not establish that Jennifer Douglas collected a bribe either.
The tribunal examined a $500,000 transfer made by Leno Adesanya to Jennifer Douglas, Atiku’s then-wife. Adesanya said the payment was part of a foreign-exchange transaction carried out for Atiku. The tribunal found that explanation insufficiently corroborated because the supporting documentation and witness evidence were not produced. It therefore declined to accept Adesanya’s explanation.
That is an evidential finding.
It is not a finding that Jennifer Douglas received a bribe.
It is not a finding that Atiku received a bribe.
It is not an indictment of Atiku.
And it is certainly not a conviction of Atiku.
That distinction is enormous.
The tribunal saying, in effect, “we are not satisfied that Adesanya has proved his explanation” is not the same as the tribunal saying “we have established that Jennifer Douglas received a bribe from Leno Adesanya.”
The first concerns the adequacy of an explanation offered by Adesanya.
The second would be a substantive finding of bribery.
Alake needs Nigerians to believe the second occurred.
It did not.
He has taken a payment which the tribunal examined, an explanation which the tribunal found insufficiently supported, and then supplied the missing conclusion himself.
That is not what the tribunal established.
Then comes Alake’s argument that Atiku “stayed away” from the proceedings to avoid embarrassment. This is another remarkable leap from fact to motive.
Was Atiku summoned by the tribunal to appear personally and did he refuse? Where is the evidence? Was Jennifer Douglas summoned by the tribunal to appear personally and did she refuse? Where is the evidence?
Alake’s statement says that the tribunal “requested Atiku’s witness statement”. That is not the same thing as establishing that Atiku was summoned to appear before the tribunal, refused to obey a formal order and deliberately “stayed away”.
The reporting based on the award gives a considerably more nuanced account. It says Adesanya told the tribunal that he had tried to secure Atiku’s testimony, but that Atiku was reluctant to become involved in proceedings concerning former President Olusegun Obasanjo. According to Adesanya’s account, Atiku remained an opposition politician and did not want to be drawn into a dispute involving Obasanjo.
That is Adesanya’s explanation, not a finding by the tribunal that Atiku stayed away to avoid embarrassment.
There is a world of difference.
If Alake wants Nigerians to believe that Atiku was formally summoned and wilfully refused to appear, he should produce the documentary evidence of that summons, the terms of the request, the alleged refusal and the tribunal’s finding on that refusal.
Otherwise, he is taking a statement about an unsuccessful attempt to obtain testimony and upgrading it into a deliberate act of evasion.
Worse still, he supplies a motive: “to avoid embarrassment.”
Where did the tribunal establish that motive?
It did not.
The available account is that Adesanya said Atiku did not want to get involved in anything concerning Obasanjo. That is materially different from saying Atiku was summoned, refused to obey the tribunal and did so because he feared embarrassment.
Alake has quietly inserted the motive.
That is the kind of evidential inflation running through his entire statement.
He takes “neither testified” and turns it into “stayed away.”
He takes “stayed away” and attaches a motive: “to avoid embarrassment.”
He takes a payment to Atiku’s former wife and turns it into “Atiku collected a bribe.”
He takes the tribunal’s inability to accept Adesanya’s foreign-exchange explanation and turns it into proof that the alternative allegation must therefore be true.
That is not how evidence works.
A tribunal’s inability to accept Explanation A does not automatically prove Explanation B.
And the absence of a witness does not manufacture evidence against that witness.
The tribunal examined the evidence placed before it in an arbitration involving Sunrise Power, Leno Adesanya and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Atiku was not a party to that arbitration. Jennifer Douglas was not a party to it either.
The tribunal examined Adesanya’s explanation for the $500,000 payment and found that explanation inadequately supported by documentary and corroborating evidence.
But the tribunal did not say:
“Jennifer Douglas collected a bribe.”
It did not say:
“Atiku Abubakar collected a bribe.”
It did not say:
“Atiku Abubakar directed the $500,000 payment.”
It did not indict Atiku.
It did not convict Atiku.
And it did not declare Atiku unfit to be President of Nigeria.
Those conclusions belong to Alake’s political statement, not to the tribunal’s award.
Indeed, the latest reporting states that the tribunal stopped short of finding that Atiku actually used his official position to facilitate the award of the Mambilla contract.
So where exactly is Alake getting his conviction from?
Not from the tribunal.
Not from an indictment.
Not from a criminal judgment.
Not from a finding that Atiku personally received the money.
And not even from a finding that Jennifer Douglas received a bribe.
He gets it from political interpretation.
This is where Alake’s political alchemy becomes almost comical.
He takes an evidential finding and performs political taxidermy on it. He kills the nuance, stuffs the allegation with adjectives and mounts it on the wall as a conviction.
But no such conviction exists.
The tribunal did not declare Atiku Abubakar corrupt.
It did not declare him guilty of bribery.
It did not declare him guilty of treason.
It did not declare him constitutionally unfit to contest the presidency.
It did not order his withdrawal from the 2027 presidential race.
Those are political conclusions being supplied by Alake, not findings contained in the arbitration award.
Indeed, the irony is extraordinary. Nigeria won the arbitration. Sunrise’s claims were rejected, and Sunrise and Adesanya were ordered to bear a substantial portion of Nigeria’s legal fees and expenses.
So Nigeria won.
Yet Alake appears unable to allow Nigeria’s victory to remain Nigeria’s victory.
He needs Atiku.
He needs the $500,000.
He needs the word “bribe”.
He needs “treasonable”.
He needs “unfit”.
And, finally, he needs the electorate to forget what the tribunal actually decided.
That is not legal analysis.
It is campaign rhetoric wearing a borrowed judicial wig.
The use of the word “treasonable” is another example. Treason is not merely a colourful synonym for “very bad conduct”. It has a specific legal meaning. If Alake is making a legal allegation of treason, he should identify the legal finding, the charge, the court and the judgment that established it.
He does not.
Instead, a serious legal term is converted into another political adjective.
And then comes the attempt to compare Atiku’s non-testimony with the participation of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari.
That comparison is also misleading.
The fact that other political figures appeared in the proceedings does not establish that Atiku was legally required to appear. Nor does their participation create an evidential presumption of guilt against somebody who did not testify.
A witness does not become a criminal because another witness chose to appear.
A non-testifying person does not thereby confess.
And silence cannot be manufactured into evidence merely by repeating the word “embarrassment”.
The same discipline should apply everywhere in Nigerian politics.
If Alake wants Nigerians to treat every unresolved evidential question surrounding an opponent as conclusive proof of corruption, then Nigerians are entitled to ask whether the same evidential standard is applied within the political environment he represents.
There is, for example, a materially different historical record concerning the $460,000 forfeiture involving Bola Tinubu in the United States.
The US court proceeding established that $460,000 was forfeited to the United States. That is a documented judicial event. The present dispute over related records is a separate matter, and the forfeiture itself should not be confused with a criminal conviction.
That distinction is precisely the point.
The $460,000 forfeiture involving Tinubu is an established judicial event. The Mambilla tribunal did not establish that Atiku received a bribe, and it did not establish that Jennifer Douglas received a bribe.
If Alake wants legal precision, let him practise it.
If a forfeiture must be distinguished from a criminal conviction, then an arbitral evidential finding must also be distinguished from a criminal conviction.
If a civil proceeding cannot automatically be converted into a criminal conviction, then an arbitration cannot be converted into one either.
If a court record must be quoted according to what it actually ordered, then an ICC award must equally be quoted according to what it actually decided.
That is the point.
Evidence must remain evidence. An allegation must remain an allegation. An arbitral finding must remain an arbitral finding. A forfeiture must remain a forfeiture. And a criminal conviction must remain a criminal conviction.
Anything else is political alchemy.
Alake has taken a tribunal that ruled in Nigeria’s favour, extracted one disputed payment from its evidential discussion, added the word “bribe”, added “treasonable”, added “unfit”, and presented the resulting concoction as though the International Court of Arbitration had personally convicted Atiku Abubakar.
It did nothing of the sort.
The tribunal delivered an award.
Alake delivered a political verdict.
The two should not be confused.
He wants the authority of an international tribunal without accepting the limits of what that tribunal actually decided.
He wants the intimidating letters “ICC” without respecting the institutional distinction behind them.
He wants the evidential significance of the $500,000 transaction without carrying the evidential burden required to transform it into a personal bribery conviction against Atiku.
And he wants the political benefit of a judicial verdict without producing a judicial verdict.
That is the trick.
The ICC tribunal dealt with an arbitration.
Alake has turned it into an election speech.
The tribunal examined evidence.
Alake supplied conclusions.
The tribunal rejected Sunrise’s claims.
Alake announced an imaginary conviction.
The tribunal delivered an award.
Alake delivered a campaign verdict.
And then he had the audacity to tell Atiku to withdraw from the presidential race.
That is not how law works.
That is not how evidence works.
And that is certainly not how an international arbitral award should be used in a democratic contest.
The Mambilla award can and should be scrutinised. The $500,000 payment can and should be discussed. Adesanya’s evidence can and should be examined. The role of every official involved in the 2003 Mambilla process can and should be subjected to legitimate public scrutiny.
But scrutiny is not conviction.
Suspicion is not conviction.
Political rhetoric is not conviction.
And Alake’s press statement is certainly not a judgment of the International Court of Arbitration.
Let the tribunal speak for itself.
And when it does, let us quote what it actually decided, rather than what a political campaign would like Nigerians to believe it decided.
Otherwise, Nigerians may begin to wonder why the APC Campaign Council is so desperate to pin negative news on Atiku that it cannot even allow a legal victory for Nigeria to remain a legal victory for Nigeria.
This is political alchemy at work.
Cocaine as sugar.
An arbitral award transformed into an indictment.
An evidential question transformed into a conviction.
An international institution transformed into a campaign prop.
And a presidential campaign statement dressed up as though it were the final judgment of a court.
The tribunal delivered an award.
Dele Alake delivered a political verdict.
Nigerians should read the award, not the costume.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General
The Narrative Force
