Atiku Abubakar’s registered U.S. lobbyist announced that the President had appointed him to “a White House presidential commission,” deleted the announcement, blamed Nigerian officials, and posted it again. The commission, reporters established, is the unpaid panel that picks the nation’s top high-school graduates. The contract behind the lobbyist is on file with the U.S. Department of Justice. It is downloadable below.
Von Batten-Montague-York, L.C. of Washington agrees a twelve-month engagement for “Mr. Atiku Abubakar, Oba Akenzua Street, Asokoro District, Abuja.” Fee: “One Million Two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US $1,200,000).” Objectives include “to protect and strengthen the Client’s reputational standing in Washington” and “to counterbalance incumbent-government lobbying narratives through lawful engagement.”
DocumentedThe firm registers the engagement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The short-form registration names the managing partner as Dr. Karl-Marx Edward Okeke-Von Batten III. TheCable later reports earlier filings under other forms of the name and a 2022 contract with regions of Somaliland.
DocumentedPresidential adviser Sunday Dare calls the firm’s Washington releases “public relations propaganda sheets passed off as the view of the U.S. Government,” and points to the FARA filing as proof the firm is a paid lobbyist for Atiku.
DocumentedThe firm says its founder received “unsolicited offers of $3 million” from “a highly placed individual” to stop its campaign against the incumbent, and says it preserved the exchanges for the Department of Justice and FBI. Vanguard reported the claim could not be independently verified.
AllegedOn its verified X account the firm announces that its managing partner has been appointed to “a White House presidential commission,” without naming it: “Dr. Von Batten is deeply grateful to President Trump (The Chief) for this appointment.” No White House announcement is cited by any outlet.
DisputedPer Second News establishes the body is the Commission on Presidential Scholars, administered by the U.S. Department of Education: an unpaid panel that selects up to 161 graduating high-school students for a medallion each year. It has no role in foreign policy or relations with Nigeria.
DocumentedThe announcement is deleted from the firm’s account. The firm says it took the post down after the White House told Dr. Von Batten that Nigerian government officials “were repeatedly calling” to complain. That account of events comes from the firm alone.
AllegedLate on Sunday the firm reposts the original announcement. The presidency maintains that Von Batten is a private lobbyist working for Atiku who does not speak for the U.S. government.
UnresolvedA lawful, registered lobbying contract worth $1.2 million a year, filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, whose stated purpose includes countering the Nigerian government’s narrative in Washington ahead of the 2027 election. A claimed presidential appointment that the firm announced, withdrew and re-announced, to a body that honours schoolchildren.
No wrongdoing by Atiku Abubakar: hiring a registered lobbyist is legal. No White House confirmation, and no denial, of the appointment in the cited reporting. No independent verification of the firm’s $3 million claim or of its account of calls from Nigerian officials. Atiku’s office has not been quoted on the appointment in the cited sources; a request for comment will be recorded above when sent.
The biggest file in Nigeria.
Nigeria has heard the speeches. It has not seen the files.
Two men have asked Nigeria for the presidency for twenty years. The files on them have been sitting in Washington, London and Abuja the whole time. They were counting on nobody reading them.
Millions of Nigerians saw Peter Obi as something different.
He sold Nigeria prudence. The papers show a tax haven, paid nominees and a trust nobody was meant to find. What happens when the reformer is measured against his own standard?
Trader, banker, governor. The reputation for prudence that became a movement.
The words that carried the campaign, held up in large type. Later chapters set them beside the paper.
Thousands of miles from Nigeria, another story was written on paper.
A company in the British Virgin Islands, incorporated in the fifth year of his governorship. A Belize shareholder. A trust in Tortola. A trustee in New Zealand.
Businessman → Investments → Governor → Corporate structures → Public declarations → Presidential politics → The Obidient movement.
Caught on paper, he blamed the paper.
The law's authors were "ignorant". The registry was late. The family owned it. The bank told him to. Every excuse, set against the document it contradicts.
What he preached. What he hid.
Side by side: the prudence he sold to Nigeria and the offshore structure he built for himself while he was selling it.
"I did not violate any law before, during and after my stewardship as the governor of Anambra."Peter Obi — written statement responding to the Pandora Papers, October 2021
The Pandora Papers, an investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and published in Nigeria by Premium Times, traced a set of offshore entities to Peter Obi. Offshore ownership is not, by itself, evidence of corruption. So the file asks narrower questions.
A British Virgin Islands company, named for his daughter, with nominee directors supplied by a Monaco intermediary. Later renamed PMGG Investments and placed under a BVI trust.
Four years and eight months into his time as governor of Anambra State. He took office on 17 March 2006 and left in March 2014.
Leaked records name Obi as the sole ultimate beneficial owner. Obi describes the structure as a family holding created on professional advice.
Obi told Premium Times he did not declare the offshore companies to the Code of Conduct Bureau: "I don't declare what is owned with others."
Public officers must declare all assets on taking office, may not maintain foreign bank accounts, and must withdraw from private business. Whether Obi's arrangements breached those rules has never been tested before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Obi said the reporting alleged no corruption, that it "bordered more on tax avoidance and non-declaration of some jointly-owned assets", and that he acted on the advice of investment experts and reputable lawyers.
Select a moment to open its evidence card · swipe on mobile
"On the allegation that I violated the Nigerian Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, as well as sections of the 5th Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), by not declaring any alleged assets in Companies registered outside the Nigerian Federation, I think that the authors displayed ignorance on this."Peter Obi, statement, 7 October 2021
He said the reporting did not allege diversion of public funds or unlawful business, and that he acted "according to professional opinions and advice of investment experts and reputable lawyers both locally and internationally."As reported by The ICIR and TheCable
"I don't declare what is owned with others. If my family owns something I won't declare it. I didn't declare anything I jointly owned with anyone."Peter Obi to Premium Times, 2021
On remaining a listed UK director after taking office, he said he "resigned immediately" by handing his wife a resignation letter, and suggested the company or Companies House recorded it late. On the offshore structure, he said the advice came from Lloyds.Premium Times, 4 October 2021
Public officers must declare their assets. Obi built his political identity on prudence, disclosure and financial discipline.
"I did not violate any law before, during and after my stewardship as the governor of Anambra."
"I resigned immediately."
"I didn't declare anything I jointly owned with anyone."
A BVI company incorporated 17 November 2010, in his fifth year in office, with nominee directors and a Belize shareholder.
The Code of Conduct Bureau opened a review of Nigerians named in the Pandora Papers. Obi has never accounted for the structure in public.
UK Companies House records his resignation as 16 May 2008, fourteen months after he was sworn in, with the notice received on 16 June 2008.
Leaked records list Obi as the sole ultimate beneficial owner. The Fifth Schedule requires declaration of all assets, including those jointly held.
Atiku Abubakar has spent decades at the intersection of Nigerian business and political power.
In Washington his family's money was traced through offshore shells into thirty American bank accounts. In Abuja he was charged over $125 million of oil money. Nobody has ever made him answer in court. Where did the money go?
Twenty years in the Customs Service. An oil-logistics company founded with an Italian partner. The vice presidency. Influence networks that outlasted office.
$100,000 in a leather briefcase.
A congressman on FBI videotape, a wired informant, cash in a freezer. Jefferson said the Nigerian Vice President would need $500,000 "as a motivating factor". What was proven, and what was never proven against Atiku.
Why was a Nigerian Vice President's family financial network being examined in Washington?
The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, February 2010. Stacks of pages. Highlighted passages. Over $40 million in suspect funds.
Nigeria → Company → Intermediary → Bank → United States → Account, asset, entity. Every node opens. Every line is sourced.
Companies, partners, family-linked structures and banking relationships, drawn only where the paper draws them. No guilt by association.
Investigated in Washington. Charged in Abuja. Flagged by the banks.
Thirty years of questions about his money. Not one answer given under oath. The film lays out every time he walked away from the question.
He has asked for the presidency three times. He has never answered for the money once.
Crowds. Rallies. The candidate speaking. And the file that follows him to every podium.
30 July 2005. The FBI films Congressman William Jefferson taking $100,000 in cash at the Ritz-Carlton in Arlington. On the wire, he explains who the money is for: Nigeria's Vice President needs $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to deliver the contracts.
Four days later agents raid Jefferson's home and find $90,000 of the marked bills in his freezer, in $10,000 bricks inside frozen-food boxes. The serial numbers match the cash from the hotel.
Jefferson: convicted on 11 counts, sentenced to 13 years, the longest bribery sentence ever handed to a U.S. congressman. The Vice President named on his tape: three presidential campaigns since, and never once questioned under oath about the $500,000.
Every node below is drawn from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations staff report of 4 February 2010, the SEC's 2008 complaint against Siemens, and suspicious activity reports published in the FinCEN Files. Select a node to read the entry. Nothing on this map is inferred.
A congressman told an informant the Vice President needed $500,000. Atiku's answer came through a Washington lawyer. He never sat for a question.
Eighteen counts over Petroleum Technology Development Fund money moved into private bank deposits. The charges were thrown out on a technicality, not on the facts. The facts were never tried.
The SEC put $2.8 million of Siemens bribe money through a Maryland account in the name of a former Nigerian Vice President's wife. Siemens pleaded guilty. The Abubakars explained nothing.
Over $40 million in suspect funds, thirty American bank accounts, a blind trust that owned its own trustee. His explanation for the fortune: "fortunate investments".
A $1,018,500 wire for a Dubai flat. Twenty-seven Intels transactions worth $11.1 million. Two banks put his name on real-time suspicious-activity monitoring. His spokesman declined to comment.
Each time, the same file. Each time, the same silence. The Money Trail puts every question to him on camera and records what he does with it.
Nasir El-Rufai ran Kaduna State for eight years and helped build the coalition now asking Nigeria for power.
In February 2026 the anti-corruption commission arrested him. In March it charged him in two courts with nineteen counts: severance paid twice at fourteen times the legal figure, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash through a domiciliary account. He says not guilty. The courts have not yet said anything.
The man who sold the state's companies, cleared the capital's slums, and governed Kaduna with a reputation for hard edges.
18 February 2026. The ICPC takes him into custody. The next day his Abuja home is searched. He stays in custody 34 days.
N289,826,998.12 in September 2020. N289,826,998.12 again in January 2023. The legal entitlement, the commission says, was N20,013,245.
Cash deposits into a domiciliary account between 2016 and 2023 totalling more than $780,000, including $320,800 from his co-defendant.
Ten counts before the Federal High Court. Nine more before the Kaduna State High Court. Not guilty to all nineteen.
Ten at the Federal High Court, Kaduna (FHC/KD/73/2026). Nine at the Kaduna State High Court (KDH/KAD/ICPC/01/26). Abuse of office, money laundering, fraud, conferring undue advantage. A charge is an accusation; the defendant is presumed innocent.
The commission says he received N289.8 million as severance in September 2020 and the same sum again in January 2023, against a legal entitlement of N20,013,245.
Pleas of not guilty to every count in both courts. A fundamental-rights suit says the search warrant was "null and void for lack of particularity" and seeks N1 billion in damages and the return of seized items.
The three files above belong to the men running against the incumbent. This is his side of the ledger: published assessments of Bola Tinubu’s three years in office, as they appear in the Nigerian press. Reporting is labelled reporting; opinion is labelled opinion. The shelf grows as the record does.
Weighs the 2023 fuel-subsidy removal and exchange-rate unification against their cost. Cites stock-market capitalisation rising from ₦30 trillion to ₦160 trillion and more than 2,700 kilometres of road projects, and records critics’ point that living costs, unemployment and insecurity have not eased for most households.
Read at The Sun Vanguard · 19 August 2026Commentary · one man’s assessment Nigeria on the path of economic renewal: Chief F. E. Ojugbana hails Tinubu reforms, Dangote’s industrial revolutionAn elder statesman and businessman argues the reforms are laying foundations for a private-enterprise economy anchored by the Dangote Group. Cites an IMF projection of 4.1% growth for 2026 and a $5.5 billion current-account improvement from the Dangote refinery, while cautioning that stability must reach jobs and purchasing power to count as success.
Read at Vanguard The Sun · September 2026 · Wale OsofisanOpinion Tinubu’s Renewed Hope and the case for honest assessmentArgues that both cheerleaders and critics oversimplify. Credits the reforms with reserves of $46 billion by end-2025 and growth of 3.87% in 2025, then insists the gains mean little until citizens see them in services, jobs and food prices, and proposes a “National Social Accountability Compact” for states to report outcomes.
Read at The SunFigures are as stated by each publication and have not been re-verified here. This shelf is not a finding on the incumbent; it is the published record of his term, added to as it is written.
Every major statement in the films links back to an entry here. Each entry carries a status. Filter by film, category or status. Open an entry to read the record and the source.
Every report, court filing and official release cited on this site, by subject and date, newest first. Links open the publisher's page.
The primary documents behind the films. Government reports and court filings are hosted here as published; registry and agency pages link to the issuing body.
This investigation does not rely on rumors, anonymous social-media claims or political talking points. Every entry in the Evidence Room names its source. Where the record is contested, the entry says so. Where a subject has answered, the answer is shown.
Status labels are applied conservatively. "Documented" means a primary record or an admission exists. "Alleged" means a prosecutor, investigator or publication has claimed it and no court has ruled. "Disputed" means the parties disagree on the facts or the law. "Denied" records the subject's response. "Never tried" and "Never convicted" mean exactly that: the matter was never taken to a verdict.
Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and Nasir El-Rufai will be given meaningful opportunities to respond to the material allegations presented in the documentaries before release. Their responses on the public record are shown below and will be updated as new responses arrive.
"I did not break any law." He said he was not accused of diverting public funds, that the reporting concerned tax avoidance and non-declaration of jointly-owned assets, and that he acted on professional advice.Statement, 7 October 2021
Through his Washington lawyer in 2006 he denied wrongdoing in the Jefferson matter. In 2020 his spokesman Paul Ibe said the Prodeco transfers were "a legitimate transaction" and declined to comment on the HBL suspicious activity report. He attributes his wealth to fortunate investments. Jennifer Douglas denies any wrongdoing.Washington Post 2006 · Premium Times 2020 · Senate PSI 2010
Not guilty to all nineteen counts, entered at the Federal High Court and the Kaduna State High Court. His fundamental-rights suit calls the search warrant "null and void for lack of particularity, material drafting errors, ambiguity in execution parameters, overbreadth, and absence of probable cause."Pleas, 24 March 2026 and April 2026; suit filed February 2026
Nigeria has never suffered from a shortage of politicians promising change. But democracy requires more than promises. It requires scrutiny.
