By: Manoah Kikekon
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| Proposed Badagry Seaport and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem |
DUBAI, UAE – Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the longtime Chairman and CEO of DP World, has resigned following the release of thousands of emails detailing a graphic and personal relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The departure of the Emirati billionaire marks a dramatic fall for the man who once spearheaded a multi-billion dollar bid to transform Nigeria’s maritime landscape through the Badagry Deep Seaport.
The resignation, announced on Friday, February 13, 2026, came after intense pressure from international investors. DP World confirmed that Essa Kazim has been appointed as the new Chairman, while Yuvraj Narayan takes over as Group CEO. The company stated the move was to "support its strategy for sustainable growth," though the timing directly follows the unsealing of U.S. Justice Department files that named bin Sulayem over 4,000 times in correspondence with Epstein.
Bin Sulayem’s influence famously extended to Nigeria, where he aggressively pursued the development of the Badagry Deep Seaport in Lagos. Emails from June 2018 reveal that bin Sulayem contacted Jide Zeitlin, a Nigerian-born Wall Street investor and former Goldman Sachs partner, to express his preference for the Badagry site over Lekki.
"Dear Jide, Jeffrey introduced us a while ago. We are very interested in Nigeria. The two locations available are Badagry and Lekki, we prefer Badagry because the infrastructure is better," bin Sulayem wrote in a 2018 email, highlighting how the Epstein network acted as a bridge for Nigerian infrastructure discussions.
The unsealed files paint a disturbing picture of the bond between the Dubai ports boss and the convicted paedophile. In one 2013 exchange, Epstein referred to bin Sulayem as one of his "most trusted friends in every sense of the word," adding that the Emirati had "never let him down."
The correspondence included lewd details, with bin Sulayem recommending a Tokyo-based spa to Epstein that offered explicit services such as "facesitting" and "ejaculation by hand massage." In other messages, bin Sulayem boasted of his sexual exploits, describing a September 2015 encounter with a Russian woman as the "best sex I ever had."
The scandal has also cast a shadow over former Nigerian Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okey Enelamah. Reports suggest that Jide Zeitlin the man bin Sulayem lobbied for the Badagry project had previously introduced Enelamah and Sulayem through the Epstein network. While Enelamah, a Pentecostal pastor, has maintained he committed no wrongdoing, the revelation of these high-level connections to the Epstein circle has sparked fresh scrutiny of past Nigerian trade negotiations.
The fallout reached a breaking point when major financial partners began severing ties. British International Investment (BII) and Canada’s La Caisse, which has invested over $5 billion in DP World, paused future ventures, demanding that the company "shed light" on bin Sulayem’s conduct.
"We have made it clear to the company that we expect it to shed light on the situation and take the necessary actions," a representative for La Caisse stated, emphasizing the distinction between the corporation and the individual.
With bin Sulayem out, the new leadership under Kazim and Narayan faces the monumental task of restoring the reputation of Dubai’s largest seaport operator. The company oversees roughly 10% of global container traffic, but the shadow of the Epstein files and the "torture video" comments which bin Sulayem was allegedly associated with threatens to linger.
For Nigeria, the resignation marks the end of an era for the specific vision of the Badagry Deep Seaport once pushed by bin Sulayem. As the global maritime community watches the transition, the focus shifts to whether the new leadership will revisit abandoned African projects or distance itself entirely from the controversial legacy of its former chief.
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**Would you like me to draft a follow-up analysis on how this leadership change might impact current DP World investments in other African ports?**