Three children of Sambo Dasuki, including his teenage sons, kept secret assets in tax havens when he was a national security adviser.

This was exposed by Pandora Papers, a project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), and of which Premium Times is a part.

Multi-billionaire Nigerian businessman Leno Adesanya in 2013 approached a secret seller in the British Virgin Islands, Trident Trust Company Limited, to help Dasuki’s family register a shell company, according to the investigation. , Hydropower Investments Limited.

In the documentation submitted for the incorporation of the company, Adesanya indicated that Hydropower Investment was established to own real estate and investment portfolios.

The businessman also indicated that the company would hold, on behalf of the Dasuki family, 1.5 million shares of Sino Africa (Nigeria) Limited, a 19-year-old company that has it (Adesanya) and a certain Uche Nwokedi as directors.

Hydropower Investments, according to company documents, will also hold 10 million shares for Dasukis in Sunrise Power & Transmission (Nigeria) Co. Limited, a company which is grappling with a long-standing dispute with the Nigerian government over the Mambilla electrical project.

The legal dispute blocks key funding from China’s EXIM bank to run the Mambilla project, an ambitious power generation infrastructure seen as critical to tackling Nigeria’s long-standing power sector crisis.

The shell company, Hydropower Investments, was registered on November 14, 2013, with Adesanya and Abubakar Atiku Dasuki, a son of the former NSA, as directors.

But while Adesanya was the face of the company and used his Lagos home as the contact address for the offshore company, he did not own any shares.

The shareholders and ultimate beneficial owners of the company are Abubakar Atiku Dasuki (17,000 shares), Hassan Sultan Dasuki (16,500 shares) and Asmau Iman Dasuki (16,500 shares).

Abubakar was 31 when the company was founded while Hassan and Asmau were 18.

The three shareholders are children of former NSA Dasuki, one of Nigeria’s most powerful figures at the time the company was incorporated, and allotted a total of 11.5 million shares in the companies. Adesanya – Sunrise and Sino Africa.

There is no evidence that Dasuki or her children paid for the shares. When the registrar, Trident Trust Company, inquired about how the shareholders raised the funds with which they planned to acquire the assets, Adesanya simply provided a vague response, telling them that the assets would be “interest bearing.” through a loan to be organized by the sponsor (Leno Adesanya) of the project.

The second business stalemate Adesanya fought to resolve under the Jonathan administration was around the $ 6 billion Mambilla power project which was awarded to his company, Sunrise Powers and Transmission Company Limited, but which is next. became the object of an intense commercial conflict and a power game.

The Mambilla Power Project, first designed in the 1970s and slated to produce 3,050 megawatts of electricity, has stalled amid controversies surrounding the award of the contract to Sunrise Power.

The award followed a 2003 agreement under the administration led by Olusegun Obasanjo to build the 3,050 MW power plant in Mambilla, Taraba state, on a build, operate and handover basis.

The Jonathan government, in which Dasuki played a leading role, has worked very hard to resolve the impasse.

It is not known if Dasuki offered Adesanya and his company any help in any way. But it was during this period – November 2013 – that Adesanya quietly incorporated Hydropower Investments for the Dasukis, then awarded them 10 million shares of Sunrise Power and an additional 1.5 million shares in another of its companies – Sino Africa.

However, after the departure of the Jonathan government, the legal battle returned and remained unresolved, again delaying the execution of the Mambilla project.

Adesanya. speaking through his representative, said he did not get any favors from Dasuki and added that “the kids wanted to start doing business and I advised them to set up an offshore company for the purpose discretionary “.

Responding to a request, Dasuki said, through a representative, that he did not ask Adesanya to register the business for his children. He said businessmen sometimes render unsolicited favors to government officials, even without their knowledge.

He added that, moreover, his children were adults, who could make business decisions on their own.