Following the intervention of some elder statesmen and influential royal fathers, the Chairman of Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited, Mr. Leno Adesanya, has in a show of patriotism, written President Bola Tinubu, seeking an amicable settlement of the dispute between the federal government and his company over the Mambilla Hydropower project in Taraba State, UGAMA TV has learnt.
The dispute is a subject of arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce Court of Arbitration in Paris, France, where the promoters of Sunrise are said to be seeking a compensation of $2.3 billion for the Nigerian government’s alleged violation of the $6 billion contract agreement and to defray what it had spent on financial and legal consultants.
Efforts made by UGAMA TV to get the details of Adesanya’s letter said to have been written in early February were unsuccessful as a source privy to it refused to reveal the details, citing both the arbitration and the letter’s confidentiality.
The source however informed UGAMA TV that Adesanya told Tinubu that he was willing to explore a negotiated exit of his company from the power project given the president’s commitment to the project, which will positively touch the lives of 50 million residents of the northern part of the country.
Adesanya, according to the source, told Tinubu that he was willing to work with him to settle all the disputes in a win-win manner in the interest of Nigerians and the country’s economy.
While hailing Tinubu’s efforts to ensure an amicable settlement of the legal dispute, the promoter of Sunrise, the source further disclosed, also reminded Tinubu that the President of the ICC Tribunal had on many occasions encouraged the two parties to explore an amicable settlement.
Adesanya had reportedly claimed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration had on or about May 22, 2003, awarded a $6billion contract for the construction of the 3,050MW Mambilla Hydropower Station on a Build, Operate, and Transfer (BOT) basis to his company.
But Obasanjo accused the Minister of Power and Steel, under his administration, Dr. Olu Agunloye, of fraudulently awarding the contract for the project without the approval of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
Agunloye rejected the former president’s accounts, alleging that the Nigerian government was using him as a scapegoat to escape sanction for abandoning the contractual agreements on the project.
Agunloye insisted that the contract for the project was duly awarded in 2003 by the Obasanjo’s administration on a BOT basis.