Naijaonpoint
The Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) paid out a staggering ₦13,043,456,977.34 in 19 payments between July 2022 and February 2025 for the resurfacing, repainting and external repairs of low-cost housing estates in Lagos, payment records obtained by SecretsReporters have shown.
The payments, all made under the watch of the institute’s Director-General, Prof. Samson Duna, raise serious questions about procurement, value for money and the agency’s fidelity to its statutory mandate. The records show a striking concentration: ₦9,892,231,911.92 of the total which is nearly 76 per cent released in 13 payments on a single day, December 31, 2023, the last day of the budget year, a timing that offends the Financial Regulations, which require that public payments be made only for works executed and duly certified, not rushed out as the fiscal year closes.
The biggest single award, ₦1,210,730,189.25, went to Eze Manjoe Global Resources Limited on December 31, 2023, for the resurfacing and external repairs of Shitta Low-Cost Housing Estate Phase I. Yet the same Shitta Phase I appears twice in the records for that same day: Hawawu Global Ventures Limited collected ₦403,472,910.34 for the same estate phase under a different reference number, taking the combined outlay for one estate phase to ₦1,614,203,099.59. Paying two contractors for identical work on the same estate phase without public explanation raises the spectre of duplicate or split awards, a practice the Public Procurement Act, 2007 frowns upon in its demand for transparent, competitive and properly packaged procurement.
Equally curious is the cluster of near-identical awards. Four estates – Itire Lawanson Phase II, Ogunmola Phase I, Iponri Phase I and Iponri Phase II were awarded on the same day, December 31, 2023, to four different firms, namely LRB Global Investment Limited, Sparktech Global Ventures Limited, Bridgevine Resources Limited and Joydrill Integrated Services Limited at suspiciously uniform sums of about ₦807 million each: ₦807,088,601.39, ₦807,164,834.77, ₦807,093,709.85 and ₦807,142,744.55. A fifth award of ₦818,029,634.36 went to JRB Oil and Gas Limited for Itire Lawanson Phase I, completing a pattern of awards within a hair’s breadth of each other for different sites. Such uniformity across distinct locations suggests pricing that may not have been independently competed for each site, as the Public Procurement Act requires.
Brown Integrated Energy Services Limited received two payments of exactly ₦605,336,711.28 each on December 31, 2023, both tied to Shitta Phase II under the same reference, one described as a payment approved and the other as a balance payment approved. The pair totalled ₦1,210,673,422.56. Two identical payments for the same work under one reference number beaks the the Financial Regulations act.
Alaka Jakande Phase I and Phase II were awarded at near-twin sums: ₦928,219,952.16 to Michael Obi Ochie and Sons Nigeria Limited and ₦928,172,764.30 to Jay Jay Badmus Investment Limited, both on December 31, 2023. Masha-Shomade-Small London Phase II went to Brighttech Resources Limited for ₦827,877,088.42 the same day, while Phase I was split into three payments to Monnex Global Resources Nigeria Limited – ₦336,566,059.97 on December 31, 2023, ₦339,866,548 on February 23, 2024, and ₦110,133,452 on March 5, 2024 totalling ₦786,566,059.97.
Then came the repeat awards. In February 2025, NBRRI went back to three of the same contractors for the same three estates: Sparktech collected ₦971,450,669.33 for Ogunmola, LRB took ₦850,750,053.38 for Itire Lawanson, and Bridgevine got ₦866,695,875.78 for Iponri, another ₦2,688,896,598.49 with no publicly demonstrated fresh competition. The repeat awards took Sparktech’s total to ₦1,778,615,504.10, Bridgevine’s to ₦1,673,789,585.63 and LRB’s to ₦1,657,838,654.77.
Corporate searches conducted on Corporate Affairs Commission’s show that four of the paid contractors are inactive on CAC, meaning their filings are not current. LRB Global Investment Limited (RC-1538141, registered November 1, 2018), Sparktech Global Ventures Limited (RC-1715551, registered September 25, 2020), Michael Obi Ochie and Sons Nigeria Limited (RC-1491032, registered May 2, 2018) and Greenleaf Agri Resources Limited (RC-963913, registered July 5, 2011) all carry inactive status. The three estate contractors among them such as LRB, Sparktech and Michael Obi Ochie and Sons collectively collected ₦4,364,554,111.03 of the NBRRI money. Under the Bureau of Public Procurement’s requirements, contractors doing government business are expected to present evidence of current tax and corporate filings; awards to inactive companies undermine that regime.
NBRRI was established as a research institute for building and road technologies, not as an estate maintenance agency. Spending ₦13 billion on repainting housing estates including ₦12,328,466.93 paid to Greenleaf Agri Resources on July 22, 2022, for transformers at Gegu Egba in Kogi State stretches the institute’s remit and offends the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007, which demands that public funds be applied to the purposes for which agencies exist.
Prof. Duna has headed NBRRI since October 2020, when he became acting Director-General, and was reappointed in November 2024.
Source: …Secretsreporters