The Nigeria Ports Deal: Sultan, Zeitlin, and Epstein's Room

The deal started a month earlier than the emails suggest. May 3, 2018: President Buhari was at the White House meeting Trump. Sultan Bin Sulayem was also in Washington that day. Zeitlin tried to arrange a face-to-face but Sultan left for Cyprus before it could happen. That evening, Nigeria's trade minister Okey Enelamah stopped by Zeitlin's home, fresh from the Buhari/Trump summit. He mentioned his discussions with Sultan at Davos. Zeitlin also noted he'd spoken with Vice President Pence earlier that day. He forwarded all of it to Epstein: "No worry both problem and solution will still be there" (vol00009-efta00815378-pdf-0).

The next morning Zeitlin had another question for Epstein: "do you know Oleg Deripaska or Ivan Glasenberg?" Deripaska was the sanctioned Russian aluminum oligarch. Glasenberg was the CEO of Glencore, the world's largest commodity trader, with operations across Nigeria and central Africa. Epstein replied: "Easy. Does 11 work" (vol00009-efta00816624-pdf-0). The Nigeria ports conversation and the Russian/commodity access conversation were happening in the same exchange, one day apart.

June 5, 2018. Sultan Bin Sulayem emailed Jide Zeitlin, Goldman partner, chair of Nigeria's sovereign wealth fund, just back from Abuja: "Jeffrey introduced us a while ago. We are very interested in Nigeria." He laid out two targets: Badagry, where Maersk had signed three years earlier but never broken ground, and Lekki, already given to an Indian company a decade ago. He wanted Bolloré's portfolio. He wanted a proposal.

Zeitlin didn't give him one. "I am recently back from Abuja and Paris. We should meet." Sultan replied with thirteen years of context. DP World had been trying to enter Nigerian ports since 2005. He'd met the previous two presidents. He'd met the current Lagos governor. Every attempt had collapsed: dollar dividends versus naira earnings, an industrial park offer he'd declined because "there is no benefit for us to create an industrial zone to produce cargo for someone else's port." His position was clear: greenfield at Badagry or brownfield acquisition in Lagos. Nothing else (vol00009-efta01041715-pdf-3).

Zeitlin wrote back to Sultan, then forwarded the thread to Epstein with a different message: "Your pal does not get it. I am not a shopkeeper in a souk or on Old Bond Street trying to sell him a trinket. His 'give me a proposal approach' doesn't work in Nigeria. I need to get a better sense of him, his team, and their long-term objectives. Once I better understand him, I will then determine if I want to work with him. I am not simply for sale" (vol00009-efta01041715-pdf-0).

Epstein's first card, June 8: "you do know that kathy ruemmler is my close buddy." Kathy Ruemmler was Barack Obama's White House Counsel. Sultan: "Who do you not know!" Epstein's second card, June 9: "emir of kano." Muhammad Sanusi II, former Central Bank Governor of Nigeria, Emir of Kano, one of the most powerful traditional rulers in the country. When the deal stalled, Epstein cycled through his rolodex. Obama's counsel. Then northern Nigeria's most influential figure. He wasn't providing capital or expertise. He was proving he could open any room.

Zeitlin wrote back to Epstein, not Sultan: "this back and forth has value as part of learning about Sultan. How his brain is wired. Why he has struggled to get things done on the continent." Then: "unbeknownst to Sultan, I was otherwise looking at being in Abu Dhabi this coming Sunday and Monday — related to our mutual friend." The mutual friend is unnamed. Zeitlin was running a separate Abu Dhabi track simultaneously, connected to someone both he and Epstein knew, while telling Sultan he was still evaluating the relationship.

The deal didn't close. DP World visited Nigeria in March 2019 and proposed industrial parks, the same offer Sultan had rejected in January 2018. Never approved.

What the emails show is the structure: Zeitlin as the access into Nigerian government, Sultan as the capital, Epstein as the room they both passed through. Not a broker in any formal sense. Just the person without whom the meeting doesn't happen.

Three months later, Djibouti nationalized DP World's main East Africa hub. Zeitlin wrote to Epstein: "I hope your pal's sojourn in Tel Aviv was more effective than his efforts on the African continent" (EFTA02624197-0). The Nigeria deal never closed. Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem resigned as DP World chairman on February 13, 2026, fourteen days after the DOJ public release of the Epstein files. DP World acquired a controlling stake in a Nigerian logistics provider in 2022 and began expanding in Lagos.