The story of Tafag Nigeria Limited, Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva, Christopher Owhonda’s claim of an earlier victory, the Sunrise controversy, and why Nigeria is still waiting for Mambilla
For more than two decades, Nigeria's Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project has existed somewhere between national ambition, political controversy, international arbitration and unfinished infrastructure.
The project is now described officially as a proposed 3,050MW hydroelectric facility in Taraba State, with an estimated cost of about $5.8 billion. If completed, it would rank among Nigeria's largest power-generation projects and could materially expand the country's hydroelectric capacity. The African Union's PIDA PAP 2 database currently describes it as a 3.05GW project expected to enter commercial operation in 2030.
Yet Mambilla's history is much older than the contracts that dominate today's headlines.
And behind the better-known dispute involving Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited lies another story that deserves examination: the claim by Christopher Aguheva Owhonda, director of Tafag Nigeria Limited, that his late father, Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva, originally pursued the project for Tafag and that Tafag's bid was the highest-scoring proposal.
That claim raises a fundamental question:
Did Nigeria's Mambilla story really begin with Sunrise Power—or was there an earlier procurement process in which Tafag Nigeria Limited was the leading bidder?
The available public record does not yet establish Christopher Owhonda's entire account. But it does establish something important: Tafag was unquestionably part of the Mambilla procurement process and was one of the companies that submitted a detailed proposal.
Recent court testimony and documents make the story considerably more complicated than the simplified narrative that has dominated public discussion.
The man asking for the record to be reopened
Christopher Aguheva Owhonda identifies himself as a Nigerian citizen from Rivers State and director of Tafag Nigeria Limited.
According to his account, his late father, Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva, was the company's CEO and became involved in Mambilla as far back as 1999.
Owhonda says Tafag eventually bid for the project and that its proposal scored the highest, with Sunrise coming second.
He says his family possesses documentary evidence supporting this account.
That evidence is potentially significant because the public record confirms that Tafag was not an outsider who appeared late in the Mambilla story.
In 2025, an EFCC witness told an Abuja court that seven companies had initially expressed interest in the project, while four ultimately submitted detailed proposals: Tafag Nigeria Limited, Lemna International, Sunrise Power and Propel Consortium.
The same testimony established that Tafag and Sunrise were subsequently singled out for further consideration.
That is an important piece of the historical record.
It means the Mambilla procurement process involved Tafag at a serious level.
The question is not whether Tafag existed in the process.
The question is what happened to Tafag's bid—and whether the eventual award to Sunrise reflected the original procurement evaluation, a subsequent negotiation, or something else.
1999–2002: Before the famous Sunrise contract
The history is particularly important because much of today's Mambilla controversy focuses on the May 2003 contract awarded to Sunrise.
But the project had already passed through several stages before that.
According to testimony reported by the News Agency of Nigeria, former Power Minister Olusegun Agagu wrote to President Olusegun Obasanjo in November 2002 concerning development of the 3,960MW Mambilla project.
The testimony stated that Agagu identified seven companies that had expressed interest and recommended Sunrise and Tafag for consideration.
President Obasanjo reportedly approved further engagement while directing that the Federal Government's equity participation should not exceed 25 percent.
This is where the historical record becomes particularly interesting.
Tafag was not simply one of many names on a preliminary list.
It was among the two companies specifically identified for further negotiation.
That fact gives Owhonda's request for a re-examination of the historical record considerably more substance than a claim based solely on family recollection.
The 2003 technical committee and the disputed question of who actually won
The most important publicly available evidence concerns the technical evaluation conducted in early 2003.
According to evidence presented during the current legal proceedings, the technical committee's March 12, 2003 report stated that four companies submitted detailed proposals:
- Tafag Nigeria Limited
- Lemna International
- Sunrise Power
- Propel Consortium
After assessing the proposals and presentations, the committee recommended Sunrise based on cost effectiveness, execution capacity and the project's economic implications.
The committee also recorded Sunrise's proposed tariff at 2.1 US cents per kilowatt-hour under a 40-year build-operate-transfer structure.
This is crucial.
Because it means the publicly reported 2003 technical-committee record does not, on its face, support the simple proposition that Tafag was declared the winner of that particular evaluation.
But that does not necessarily disprove Owhonda's account.
Why?
Because he is describing a broader history beginning in 1999, while the documents currently being discussed publicly relate heavily to the 2002–2003 procurement and negotiation process.
There may therefore be more than one evaluation, bid round, technical assessment or procurement stage involved.
This is precisely why the original documents that Owhonda says Tafag possesses could be important.
The Tafag document could change the historical conversation
If Tafag possesses an official document showing that its proposal received the highest score during an earlier evaluation, several questions immediately arise.
What was the date of that evaluation?
Who constituted the evaluation committee?
What were the scoring criteria?
Was the evaluation conducted before or after the 2002 restructuring of the project?
Was the project capacity the same?
Was the procurement model the same?
Was it a government-funded project, a BOT concession, or another structure?
Was the later 2003 technical committee evaluating the same procurement exercise or a revised one?
And most importantly:
Was Tafag's earlier evaluation superseded by a subsequent procurement process?
Those are questions that cannot responsibly be answered from newspaper reports alone.
They require the original procurement documents.
Then came Sunrise
The better-known chapter began with Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited.
On May 22, 2003, then Minister of Power and Steel Olu Agunloye issued what became known as the Sunrise Mambilla BOT contract.
The agreement contemplated a massive hydroelectric project of approximately 3,960MW under a Build-Operate-Transfer arrangement.
But the legality of that award subsequently became one of the central issues in Nigeria's Mambilla saga.
The EFCC later prosecuted Agunloye, alleging that he awarded the contract without the required budgetary provision, approval and cash backing. Agunloye pleaded not guilty and has disputed the allegations.
Former President Obasanjo has also disputed the suggestion that he personally authorised the final Sunrise award.
According to evidence reported in 2025, Obasanjo told investigators that he had directed the minister to submit the proposal to the Federal Executive Council and that the council directed the minister to withdraw it.
Agunloye's position has been different.
He has argued that the necessary approvals existed and that Obasanjo was involved in the process leading to the Sunrise award.
This disagreement is now part of the legal record rather than merely political commentary.
Where Tafag becomes important again
One of the most revealing details from the court proceedings is that Tafag did not disappear immediately after Sunrise emerged from the technical process.
According to evidence reported by Nigerian media, after the May 22, 2003 Sunrise award, the ministry also wrote to Tafag Nigeria Limited inviting the company for further negotiations and clarification concerning Federal Government equity participation, capital requirements, consultancy and private-sector involvement.
Tafag was asked to liaise with the Director of Power for a meeting.
That creates an intriguing question.
If Sunrise had already been conclusively awarded the project, why was Tafag still being engaged for negotiations?
There may be an administrative explanation.
There may have been competing structures under consideration.
There may have been an attempt to preserve alternatives.
Or the documentation may reveal something else entirely.
But the fact itself deserves greater historical attention.
Then the project became trapped in litigation
The Mambilla project subsequently entered a cycle that would define it for almost two decades.
In 2007, the Federal Government signed a roughly $1.46 billion civil-works contract with China Gezhouba Group Corporation and China Geo-Engineering Corporation.
Sunrise challenged the move, arguing that it conflicted with its existing contractual position.
The civil-works arrangement was later terminated in 2009.
A 2012 General Project Execution Agreement attempted to bring Sunrise and its Chinese partners back into the project.
But the dispute returned.
By 2017, Nigeria had entered another major arrangement with a Chinese consortium involving a project estimated at approximately $5.8 billion.
Again, litigation followed.
The result was devastating from an infrastructure perspective:
the project remained largely on paper while the legal battles accumulated.
Nigeria's $5.8 billion project became a legal battlefield
Sunrise eventually pursued international arbitration.
The dispute became enormous.
At different stages, Sunrise's claims against Nigeria reached billions of dollars.
By 2022, conflicting reports were circulating about whether Sunrise had already prevailed in the arbitration.
TheCable reported at the time that contrary to some media reports, the tribunal had not yet ruled on the substantive dispute and that the arbitration process was still developing.
That distinction is important because Mambilla has repeatedly been surrounded by headlines announcing apparent victories and defeats before the underlying legal process was actually complete.
September 2026: A major legal turning point
The latest development is significant.
On September 17, 2026, an ICC arbitration tribunal rejected claims brought by Sunrise against Nigeria.
The Nigerian government announced the decision on September 18, saying the tribunal had rejected Sunrise's claims.
Reuters subsequently reported that Nigeria had won the arbitration after the tribunal dismissed a claim by Sunrise relating to the long-delayed Mambilla project. According to Nigeria's Attorney-General, the tribunal found that certain settlement agreements relied upon by Sunrise were not binding on Nigeria because the officials who signed them lacked the authority to commit the Federal Government without presidential approval.
The government also said the tribunal found corruption and public-policy problems affecting the enforceability of the agreements.
That does not, however, automatically answer every question surrounding Mambilla's history.
In particular, it does not resolve the historical question raised by Tafag.
The Sunrise arbitration and the Tafag claim are related to the same project, but they are not necessarily the same legal question.
And that is why Christopher Owhonda's story matters
If Tafag's documents can demonstrate that:
- Tafag entered the Mambilla process before Sunrise;
- Tafag submitted a bid under an earlier procurement exercise;
- Tafag was officially evaluated;
- Tafag achieved the highest score under that evaluation;
- Tafag was subsequently displaced or excluded;
- the procurement process was restarted or materially altered;
- or officials subsequently changed the procurement framework,
then Nigeria's Mambilla history would need to be expanded.
It would no longer be simply:
Government → Sunrise → China → Arbitration → Delay.
It could instead be a much longer institutional story involving successive procurement processes, competing Nigerian and international interests, changing project structures, different ministers, different administrations and multiple contractual arrangements.
The late Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva
There is also a human dimension to this story.
Christopher Owhonda says his late father, Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva, was the CEO of Tafag Nigeria Limited and that he pursued the Mambilla project years before the present controversy became internationally famous.
Public records independently confirm that Thompson O. Aguheva was associated with Tafag Nigeria Limited.
A 2012 report, for example, identified him as the company's CEO when he was arraigned by the EFCC over a separate alleged dishonoured-cheque matter. That case concerned an alleged ₦5.7 million cheque and was unrelated to the Mambilla procurement itself.
That distinction matters.
The existence of an unrelated legal proceeding involving a company's former CEO does not establish anything about the merits of Tafag's Mambilla bid.
What matters for the Mambilla question is the procurement documentation.
The missing chapter in Nigeria's Mambilla story
There is a broader problem here.
Infrastructure projects of this magnitude should leave behind an extensive documentary trail:
- expressions of interest;
- prequalification documents;
- tender invitations;
- bid submissions;
- technical evaluation reports;
- financial evaluations;
- minutes of evaluation committees;
- ministerial correspondence;
- FEC memoranda;
- presidential directives;
- letters of award;
- concession agreements;
- financing proposals;
- legal opinions;
- correspondence with bidders;
- procurement reviews;
- arbitration documents.
Mambilla appears to have accumulated many of these documents over the years.
But the public narrative has largely been constructed around the Sunrise dispute.
That leaves an obvious archival question:
Where is the complete procurement history from the beginning?
The project itself is still desperately important
It is easy to become so consumed by the legal dispute that the actual purpose of Mambilla disappears.
Nigeria remains a country with enormous electricity-generation and transmission challenges.
The current Mambilla concept is approximately 3,050MW, with four dams and underground powerhouses containing 12 turbine-generator units under the project design described by PIDA PAP 2. The project is estimated at roughly $5.8 billion.
The Federal Ministry of Power previously reported a project contract value of approximately $5.7 billion, while identifying arbitration, completion of the China Exim Bank financing process and project re-scoping among the challenges facing implementation.
The financing question has been particularly important because Chinese financing was central to the later project structure.
Reuters reported following the September 2026 arbitration decision that resolving the Sunrise dispute could remove a major obstacle to financing and potentially allow renewed progress on the project.
But removing a legal obstacle is not the same thing as constructing a dam.
Nigeria still has to deal with financing, engineering, procurement, land, transmission, environmental issues, project management and execution.
The real question is no longer simply: "Who won Mambilla?"
The deeper question is:
What exactly happened to the procurement process that began before the 2003 Sunrise award?
And that is where Tafag deserves examination.
If Christopher Owhonda's family archive contains the documents he describes, they should be placed alongside the documents already introduced in the EFCC proceedings and the arbitration record.
The appropriate approach is neither to automatically accept Tafag's claim nor to dismiss it.
It is to test it against the primary documents.
That means asking for the original bid evaluation.
The original scoring sheets.
The committee membership.
The procurement criteria.
The bid-opening record.
The correspondence between Tafag and the Ministry of Power.
The November 2002 presidential directive.
The March 2003 technical committee report.
The May 2003 correspondence to Tafag.
The May 22 Sunrise award.
And every subsequent decision that changed the structure of the project.
Only then can Nigerians establish exactly how one of the country's most important power projects travelled from its earliest procurement discussions to a $5.8 billion project that remained stalled for years.
A project that became bigger than the people who started it
Mambilla has survived governments, ministers, contractors, financing negotiations, lawsuits and arbitration.
It survived the administrations of Obasanjo, Yar'Adua, Jonathan, Buhari and now Tinubu.
It moved between different contractual models.
It moved between Nigerian and international contractors.
It moved from approximately 3,960MW in some early formulations to the 3,050MW configuration that dominates the current project description.
And it became the subject of an international legal dispute worth billions of dollars.
Yet one fundamental fact has remained unchanged:
Nigeria still does not have the electricity from Mambilla.
That is perhaps the greatest indictment of the entire saga—not necessarily against one individual or one company, but against a system in which a strategic national infrastructure project can spend decades moving from one contractual arrangement to another without producing the electricity it was designed to generate.
Why Christopher Owhonda wants the story heard
Owhonda's request to publicly discuss Mambilla therefore deserves to be treated as a request for the historical record to be examined.
His central assertion—that Tafag was the original successful bidder and that his late father, Engr. Thompson O. Aguheva, played a foundational role—should be tested against the documents.
The currently available public record establishes that Tafag submitted a detailed proposal, was one of four companies to do so, and was one of two companies specifically identified for further consideration during the earlier stages of the process.
The same record indicates that a subsequent technical committee recommended Sunrise in March 2003.
Those two facts can coexist.
And precisely because they can coexist, the historical record deserves a much closer examination.
The most important documents may not be the documents that tell Nigerians who eventually received the contract.
They may be the documents showing how the decision moved from one bidder to another.
The questions Nigeria should now be asking
If Tafag's documents are authentic and complete, they could help answer at least ten important questions:
1. What was Tafag's original Mambilla proposal?
2. What was the exact date and structure of the original bid?
3. Was there a 1999 procurement exercise separate from the 2002–2003 process?
4. What did the original scoring matrix show?
5. Why was Tafag subsequently invited for further negotiations after the May 2003 Sunrise award?
6. What changed between the earlier procurement process and the March 2003 technical committee evaluation?
7. What exactly did President Obasanjo approve in November 2002?
8. What exactly did the May 21, 2003 FEC meeting approve or reject?
9. On what legal authority was the May 22, 2003 Sunrise award issued?
10. How did Nigeria move from those competing arrangements to the present $5.8 billion Mambilla project?
These questions are more valuable than another political argument over which individual should receive the blame.
They go to the institutional history of one of Nigeria's most important unfinished infrastructure projects.
The archive may be the story
There is a tendency in Nigeria to remember major infrastructure controversies through the loudest political voices.
Mambilla should be approached differently.
The surviving paperwork may tell a much more complicated story.
Christopher Aguheva Owhonda says he has documents showing his late father's role and Tafag's position in the original process.
The EFCC proceedings have already placed Tafag's name and bid in the public record.
The Sunrise arbitration has now reached a major turning point.
And the Federal Government says the latest ICC decision removes the major legal obstacle that had held up Mambilla.
The next chapter should therefore not simply be about restarting construction.
It should also be about reconstructing the history.
Because before Nigeria spends another dollar on Mambilla, Nigerians deserve to know exactly what happened to the billions, contracts, bids, negotiations and opportunities that came before.
And perhaps the most important question is the simplest:
Who actually had the right to build Mambilla—and how did Nigeria get from that original decision to where the project stands today?
That is a question the documents—not politics, memory or competing narratives—must ultimately answer.
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