The Mambilla Arbitration: When APC Propaganda Masquerade s As Evidence

The APC Campaign Council statement authored by Bayo Onanuga concerning the Paris arbitration over the Mambilla project is a transparent exercise in political propaganda and legal overreach, a desperate fishing expedition aimed at falsely implicating Atiku Abubakar by converting unsubstantiated allegations and evidentiary inferences into purported findings of criminal culpability.

The central problem is brutally simple: the arbitration was not a criminal trial of Atiku Abubakar. Atiku was not the claimant seeking damages, was not the respondent defending the contract, and the arbitration did not determine his criminal liability or constitutional eligibility for public office. Yet the APC statement appropriates unsubstantiated material arising from the proceedings and presents its own political interpretation as though it were a finding of the Arbitrar Tribunal or judicial conviction.

That is an abuse of the distinction between evidence, inference and proof.

HERE ARE THE FATAL EVIDENTIARY GAPS

1. No payment-to-Atiku link.
   Even assuming, but not conceding that the $500,000 transfer is established, a transfer to an account associated with Atiku’s former spouse does not, without any further evidence, establish that Atiku received, controlled, solicited or beneficially enjoyed the money.
2. No payment-to-bribery link.
   A financial transaction does not become a bribe merely because its circumstances appear suspicious. The APC must establish the corrupt purpose of the payment. Absent any finding by the Tribunal to that effect.
3. No identifiable official act.
   What precise official act did Atiku allegedly perform in exchange for the money? The statement never identifies one with the specificity necessary to connect the alleged payment to official misconduct or private gain.
4. No Atiku-to-contract link.
   The allegation that Atiku acted against the position of government requires evidence that he personally supervised the ministry, authorised, directed, instructed or induced the disputed contractual action. Political rhetoric cannot substitute for documentary or testimonial proof.
5. Chronology is not causation.
   The fact that one event allegedly preceded another proves sequence, not that the first caused the second. The missing evidentiary bridge between the payment and the contract is precisely what the APC statement never supplies.
6. No proof of mens rea.
   The statement identifies no evidence establishing Atiku’s knowledge of an illicit arrangement, his intention to facilitate one, or his intention that any payment should procure an official decision.
7. No evidence of conspiracy.
   Calling Atiku and another official “in cahoots” is an allegation, not evidence of conspiracy. A conspiracy requires proof of a coordinated unlawful purpose; occupying senior positions during the same administration does not establish one.
8. Arbitration does not equal criminal adjudication.
   An arbitral tribunal determining contractual claims cannot simply be transformed into a criminal court. Findings relevant to contractual liability cannot automatically be enlarged into findings of personal criminal guilt against a non-party.
9. No constitutional disqualification.
   The APC’s declaration that Atiku is “unfit” for the presidency is particularly legally empty. The statement identifies no constitutional or statutory provision establishing that these unproven allegations constitute a bar to candidature.

The APC therefore presents a profoundly defective evidentiary chain:

Allegation – inference – conclusion.

What is missing are the legally indispensable bridges:

evidence – admissibility – authentication – attribution – causation – knowledge – intent – liability.

Bayo Onanuga and the APC Campaign Council may campaign against Atiku as vigorously as they choose. They may demand investigation of any transaction they consider suspicious. But they cannot manufacture a criminal conviction through a press release.

The irony is extraordinary: an arbitration that Nigeria successfully defended is now being repackaged by the APC as though it were a judicial indictment of an opposition candidate.

It was not.

A suspicious circumstance may warrant investigation. An allegation may warrant an answer. But neither becomes established fact merely because a political spokesman repeats it loudly enough.

The APC has supplied the rhetoric. It has not supplied the proof. And in law, where the evidentiary links are missing, the conclusion does not follow.

Alex Ter Adum, PhD

-AA MOVEMENT-