Legal luminaries advise FG on amicable resolution of Mambilla/Sunrise dispute

Senior lawyers Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN and Chief Afe Babalola, SAN have advised the Federal government to resolve the ongoing dispute with Messrs: Sunrise Power Transmission Company Limited over the Mambilla Hydro Power Project currently under arbitration in the ICC Paris.  

The top lawyers, in separate official letters to the federal government, advised FGN to amicably resolve the dispute, saying that unlike the Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID) case which was flawed with corruption, bribery and preemptive contractual loopholes, the Mambilla/Sunrise case might be different.

In a letter dated December 7, 2023, titled: ‘Re: ongoing Arbitration between Sunrise Power and Transmission Company and the Federal Government of Nigeria arising from the Mambilla Hydro Electric Power Project,’, Chief Olanipekun, said the dispute pending before the International Court of Arbitration in Paris, France, can be resolved amicably to save the country unwarranted embarrassment.

With Reference No: WOC/LG/VOL.04/123/2023, and addressed to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the legal luminary noted that there are misinformation/misrepresentations that are being bandied, even in some high quarters, about what took place. 

This Luminary lawyers, after apprising the new justice minister with the background of the case, said that with documentary evidence and correspondences from FG to Sunrise all submitted to the arbitration court in Paris, it is almost impossible for the government to win against Sunrise.

From series of correspondences, it is evident that Sunrise Power has shown commitment towards a peaceful resolution but continues to fight for its rights in court.

Aside from in-substantive allegations being made against Sunrise, there is too much evidence against FGN. No amount of arm-twisting or blackmail would give FGN a better case or a way out.

The lawyers have advised President Bola Tinubu to step in and resolve the dispute amicably.

Experts, however, are worried that certain elements in the federal justice ministry and appointed international legal firm, have been pressing on the EFCC to probe and advance these in-substantive allegations, thereby prolonging the dispute to the detriment of Nigerians.