BUA Group and Hadiza Bala Usman, former managing director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), are locked in a fresh spat over the termination of a Rivers port concession deal.
According to The Cable, the fight began after Abdul Samad Rabiu, who runs BUA Group, wrote an article criticising the government. The dispute started following an article by Abdul Samad Rabiu, the chairman of BUA Group, titled ‘Two years of President Tinubu: A business perspective’. Rabiu, in the piece, claimed the NPA, under Usman’s leadership, abruptly revoked his company’s concession without prior notice. He also alleged that the action was taken to favour associates of Usman, who is now President Bola Tinubu’s special adviser on policy coordination.
Usman hit back strongly, calling Rabiu’s story complete lies. In response, Usman described Rabiu’s account as “barefaced lies” aimed at misleading the public and shifting the blame for his company’s contractual failures.
BUA Group then issued a detailed response, repeating its accusations. But in a counter-statement dated May 31, the BUA Group restated its allegations, accusing Usman of acting unilaterally, flouting a court order, and disregarding the arbitration clause in the concession agreement.
The company said it had been working with the port authority to fix problems before Usman took over. “Long before Ms. Usman’s appointment, BUA had begun formal engagement with the NPA to address outstanding remedial works and infrastructural deficiencies,” the statement reads. BUA said that instead of continuing these talks, Usman used their safety concerns as an excuse to cancel their contract immediately.
“Rather than act constructively, Ms. Usman used that letter as a pretext to issue a termination notice and summarily shut down the terminal, without providing any prior warning, consultation, or invoking the dispute resolution clause.”
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BUA accused Usman of breaking a court order and ignoring contract rules. The company accused Usman of violating a federal high court injunction granted in its favour after the termination notice was issued, and also of ignoring the arbitration process provided in the lease. “Despite this, Ms. Usman, against the advice of her agency, unilaterally decommissioned the berths, thereby violating both the agreement and a court injunction,” BUA said.
The company estimated the shutdown cost them over $10 million and said Usman’s actions were motivated by personal hatred. According to the statement, the shutdown led to over $10 million in estimated losses. The company described her actions as motivated by “personal animosity and abuse of office”.
BUA rejected Usman’s claim that former President Buhari was misled when he overturned her decision. BUA said Usman’s claim that former President Muhammadu Buhari was “misinformed” when he reversed her actions is “false, disrespectful, and disingenuous”.
Usman’s spokesman, Niran Adedokun, fought back, calling BUA’s accusations lies and half-truths. Also responding to BUA’s statement, Niran Adedokun, media and communications adviser to Usman, dismissed the firm’s allegations as “half-truths and outright falsehoods”.
He said BUA actually received multiple warnings before their contract was cancelled. Adedokun insisted that the company received “a series of default notices and warnings” before the concession was terminated.
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Adedokun said the ports authority did follow the court order, allowing BUA to operate from January 2018 until June 2019. “The NPA obeyed the court order and allowed BUA access and continued use of the facility from January 2018, when BUA secured the injunction, until June 2019, when it was decommissioned due to safety concerns raised by the company itself,” he said.
He revealed that BUA itself wrote to the authority in May 2019 saying the jetty was falling apart. “However, on 16 May 2019, BUA Ports and Terminals Limited wrote to the NPA informing it that the “jetty is in a state of total dilapidation and urgent need of repair or reconstruction…. The company further stated in the letter that “our engineers have advised us that the jetty is liable to collapse at any moment….”
After receiving this letter, the engineering department recommended shutting down the terminal to prevent danger to people and nearby facilities. Following the letter, Adedokun said, the NPA’s engineering department advised decommissioning the terminal until reconstruction details were submitted and approved, to avoid endangering nearby facilities and human lives.
Adedokun concluded by accusing BUA of trying to mislead the public whilst behaving like a company that thinks it’s above the law. “The foregoing facts impugn BUA’s serial attempts to mislead the public and present itself as a victim in the media, while in reality, it operates with the air of a conglomerate that considers itself above the laws of the land,” Adedokun said.
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