Nigeria: Mambilla - How Premium Times Investigation Helped Nigeria Defeat Leno Adesanya At Paris Tribunal

What the report says

Premium Times reported, and AllAfrica republished, that material from its 2021 Pandora Papers investigation was used in Nigeria’s defense in the Mambilla power project arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. The case involved the Nigerian government and businessman Leno Adesanya, whose company Sunrise Power & Transmission has been at the center of the long-running dispute over the project.

According to the report, the tribunal examined documents showing an offshore company, Hydropower Investments Limited, linked to members of former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki’s family and to Adesanya’s business interests. The publication said the structure was created in the British Virgin Islands in 2013 and was intended to hold shares in companies connected to Sunrise Power. The tribunal also reviewed a $1.74 million transfer from Adesanya to one of Dasuki’s sons, finding inconsistencies in the explanation that it was a loan, though it did not conclude that the payment was tied to the Mambilla agreement.

The award said Nigeria’s allegation about the alleged transfer of a Sunrise stake through Hydropower Investments relied on documents that became public through the Pandora Papers leak, and it cited the Premium Times article as evidence. Premium Times said Nigerian lawyers had sought additional material from the newsroom for the arbitration and used the publicly available reporting and documents in their case.

The report said Nigeria would have faced liabilities of more than $3 billion if it had lost. More broadly, the story highlights how investigative reporting can feed into legal and anti-corruption proceedings when public records and leaked documents are later relied on in formal disputes.