Lawyer Questions Imoke Over $6 Billion Mambilla Power Project

Former Minister of Power Olu Agunloye's legal team questioned former Cross Rivers State Governor Liyel Imoke in the FCT High Court in Abuja about the $6 billion Mambilla Power project awarded in 2003.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting Mr Agunloye on multiple corruption charges. These include awarding the contract without Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval and going against a presidential directive.

To counter these claims, Mr Agunloye's defence team aimed to disprove the alleged violations on Monday by using Mr Imoke's testimony. Mr Imoke served as power minister after Mr Agunloye in 2003 during President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration.

On 19 October, Mr Imoke, the sixth prosecution witness, stated that the FEC never approved the contract before his appointment as minister. He learned about the FEC's refusal by reading the minutes from the council’s 21 May 2003 meeting.

After his testimony, defence lawyer Adeola Adedipe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), questioned Mr Imoke about the council’s adoption of the minutes from the 21 May 2003 meeting. Mr Adedipe pointed out that this meeting was the last one held during Mr Obasanjo's first term before the cabinet was dissolved.

He expressed uncertainty about whether the next FEC adopted those minutes. During cross-examination, Mr Imoke confirmed that the 21 May 2003 meeting was indeed the last of the council in that term.

Mr Imoke explained how FEC meetings worked. He said decisions came from the minutes, which “are read and considered page by page” at the next meeting. When asked how the 21 May 2003 minutes were adopted, Mr Imoke responded that “the extracts were circulated after the council was dissolved.”

He added that he was not part of the adoption since he was not a minister or council member in May 2003. He only became minister in July 2003 during Mr Obasanjo’s second term.

“I wasn’t a member of the Council. I did not become minister until August 2003. I don’t want to make any assumptions on something I have no knowledge of.

“I don’t have knowledge of the adoption. I can’t recall. This happened in 2003.” Mr Agunloye faces seven charges, including disobedience to a presidential directive, conspiracy, forgery, and receiving bribes.

These charges come from his role in awarding the controversial $6 billion Mambilla Hydroelectric Power contract in May 2003 to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (SPTCL). The project was meant to be a 3,050 MW hydroelectric facility in Kakara village, Taraba State, but it never happened.

The prosecution claims Mr Agunloye ignored a presidential directive from 2003 during an FEC meeting about the contract. They said he went against this directive by signing a letter to SPTCL, supposedly conveying “the approval of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the construction of the 3,960 megawatts Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station.”

The EFCC also accused him of colluding with Leno Adesanya, the major promoter of SPTCL, who is currently at large, to falsify a document titled “Construction of 3,960MW Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station on a Build, Operate and Transfer Basis” in 2003.

Other allegations include receiving over N5 million from SPTCL and Mr Adesanya. Mr Agunloye has denied all seven charges.

A recent arbitration tribunal cleared Nigeria regarding the contract, finding that the award to SPTCL was linked to bribery. The defence could not finish cross-examining Mr Imoke on Monday.

After Mr Imoke raised doubts about the minutes of the 21 May 2003 FEC meeting, defence lawyer Mr Adedipe asked to see other documents the court had accepted. He wanted to check for proof of the minutes’ adoption by the next council.

“It will take me some time to go through all of these documents,” Mr Imoke said when handed the documents on Monday. Following a request from prosecution lawyer Abba Mohammed, trial judge Jude Onwuegbuzie adjourned the case until 11 November.

The minutes from 21 May 2003 had been a topic of discussion in earlier proceedings. In November 2025, the third prosecution witness, Umar Babangida, an EFCC investigator, testified that the contract award letter dated 22 May 2003, allegedly from Mr Agunloye, was forged.

Mr Babangida said EFCC investigations found no record of FEC approval for the contract and maintained that the award did not follow proper procedures. He also told the court that 40 ministers attended the 21 May 2003 FEC meeting and that no approval was given for the contract.

In March, under cross-examination, the same witness accepted that Mr Agunloye reduced the federal government's share in the project from 25 percent to not more than 10 percent. This difference amounted to $900 million, though he insisted that this reduction happened without presidential approval.

The witness also confirmed the EFCC's claim that Mr Agunloye received N5.2 million in 2019 from businessman Leno Adesanya through an intermediary. Mr Agunloye disputed this, saying the money was for a medical emergency.

The fourth prosecution witness, Ugochukwu Okoli, testified in April that the minutes brought up in the case came from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). Mr Okoli mentioned he managed a request from the EFCC for certified extracts of the FEC minutes while working as an assistant legal adviser at the SGF.

He explained that in September 2022, the SGF's office got a letter from the EFCC asking for the minutes from the 21 May 2003 FEC meeting related to a memo from the then Minister of Power on the proposed 3,960 megawatts Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Station.

This project, first awarded in 2003 to SPTCL by President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration, has been part of a long legal battle. An arbitration tribunal in Paris recently ruled in favour of Nigeria against SPTCL, which had accused Nigeria of breaking the contract.

In 2023, Mr Obasanjo accused Mr Agunloye of fraudulently awarding the contract to the company without approval. But the former minister denied these claims. He said he was being used as a scapegoat to escape penalties from the arbitration panel in Paris for not following contractual agreements on the project.

The project was meant to generate 3,960 megawatts of electricity and was designed to be built, operated, and then transferred.