Chukwuemeka Woke As NOSDRA DG Shared N805.78 Million Among Three Firms In A Single Day For One Hangar Project As Six Contractors Took The Bill To N1.04 Billion In Shame

Secrets Reporters

On 15 April 2025, three payment vouchers moved through the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency in one tight sequence. Voucher 1001280540-1 carried N290,473,269.28 to Wedgewood Integrated Investment Limited. Voucher 1001280544-1 carried N255,603,916.84 to Willaf Nigeria Limited. Voucher 1001280551-1 carried N259,701,835.88 to Ezensha Nigeria Limited. Every one of the three was a 30 per cent mobilisation payment for the same project, the construction of oil spill aerial combat aircraft hangars and oil spill response equipment storage facilities, and together they drained N805,779,022 from the agency in a single day.

Engr. Chukwuemeka Woke had spent ten months by then as Director-General of the agency, appointed by President Bola Tinubu on 22 May 2024 and in office from June 2024. SecretsReporters examined the agency’s official payment records across his tenure, and the April hangar payments are not an isolated entry. They are the second time the same project drew public money under Woke, and they sit inside a pattern of single-tranche payments, an unlocated company name, out-of-mandate contracts and cash routed through individuals that runs through the whole period.

Final payments first, mobilisation after

On 23 December 2024, the agency paid for the same hangars, and it paid in the language of completion. Three payments described as final payments left the agency that day: N77,674,305.73 to Patmag Engineering Nigeria Limited on voucher 1001251820-1, N77,559,981.41 to Adei and Sons Nigeria Limited on voucher 1001251837-1, and N74,511,627.91 to Ti-Ad Investment and Services Limited on voucher 1001251485-1, a combined N229,745,915.05. The December descriptions carry the works in full: construction of oil spill aerial combat aircraft hangars, chemical, dispersants and storage facilities at Kaduna, Port Harcourt, Lagos and Calabar airports.

Four months after final payments closed out the project, three new companies collected mobilisation fees to begin it. Six contractors had by then fed on one hangar project, and the payments across the six total N1,035,524,937.05. The April figures carry a further implication, and it is stated here as arithmetic and nothing more. A 30 per cent mobilisation implies a contract standing behind it: on that basis the Wedgewood payment implies a contract of about N968 million, the Ezensha payment a contract of about N866 million, and the Willaf payment a contract of about N852 million, together about N2.69 billion in underlying hangar contracts. Under sections 16 and 25 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, contracts of this magnitude must pass through open competitive bidding with Bureau of Public Procurement oversight. The records show money moving in two rounds, four months apart. They show no competition. Section 43 of the same Act prohibits the splitting of procurements to evade its requirements, and one project fragmented across six contractors is the precise pattern the anti-splitting provision was written to prohibit.

N382.7 million in a single tranche

The single largest payment of the period went to APT Solutions Technologies Limited: N382,700,000 on 25 August 2025, on voucher 1001313860-4, described as 100 per cent final payment in respect of a contract for geospatial and environmental forensics analysis of artisanal refineries in the Niger Delta region. The agency paid the entire contract value in one movement of money. No mobilisation tranche precedes it in the records, no interim valuation, no retention held back against performance. Section 35 of the Public Procurement Act 2007 structures public payments around certified milestones and controls advance payments through bank guarantees. A 100 per cent single-tranche payday for an intangible consultancy turns that structure upside down and hands the whole risk to the public purse.

The consultant the register cannot find

On 24 February 2025, Support Systems (Nigeria) Limited received N15,369,389.30 on voucher 1001266574-1, as 30 per cent mobilisation for consultancy on the implementation of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019. Searches of the Corporate Affairs Commission’s public search portal, under the company’s full name, under Support Systems and under Support Systems Nigeria, located no registration record for the company. The position is stated exactly as the checks support it: no record of the company was located on the national company register. Under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020, carrying on business under an unregistered company name is an offence, and a name with no registration record behind it cannot be verified as a legal person capable of holding a public contract. Fifteen million naira of mobilisation money went to a name the register cannot produce.

Erosion control in Ekiti, paid by an oil spill agency

The same February voucher run carried N52,356,972.04 to Patmag Engineering Nigeria Limited, one of the three firms that had collected hangar final payments two months earlier, on voucher 1001266577-1, described as 30 per cent mobilisation for erosion control in some selected communities in Ekiti State. Ekiti State is landlocked. It has no coastline, no oil production and no oil spills. Sections 5 and 6 of the NOSDRA (Establishment) Act 2006 confine the agency to the detection of oil spills, preparedness for them and response to them. Erosion control in Ekiti falls outside those functions, and section 38 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 treats the spending of an agency’s appropriation on purposes outside its statute as a misapplication of public funds.

One February day, six payments

The 24 February 2025 run deserves its own accounting. Six payments left the agency that day on vouchers inside a single block, 1001266557 to 1001266582, and together they came to N218,178,033.93. Ribodek Integrated Services Limited took N61,119,927.12 for the supply and procurement of office furniture and equipment. Willaf Nigeria Limited took N14,838,882.72 for laboratory equipment, reagents and consumables. Wedgewood Integrated Investment Limited took N43,665,901.32 for personal protective equipment, seven weeks before its own hangar mobilisation landed. Dipcrest Integrated Services Limited took N30,826,961.43 as a 60 per cent payment for biometric clocking and attendance, a share paid upfront that section 35 of the Public Procurement Act 2007 never contemplated without bank guarantees and certified delivery. The Support Systems consultancy and the Patmag erosion mobilisation, set out above, completed the day.

Two of the February names were returning names, and the records date their first appearances plainly. Ribodek Integrated Services Limited had been paid N39,320,509.22 for office furniture and equipment on 8 December 2023. Willaf Nigeria Limited had been paid N24,397,673.68 for laboratory equipment, reagents and consumables on the same December day in 2023. Both payments predate Woke and belong to the period of his predecessor, Idris Musa. They stand here as the companies’ history with the agency, not as spending by Woke. What belongs to his tenure is the sequel: both firms back at the payment window in February 2025, and Willaf collecting N255,603,916.84 of hangar mobilisation on top of it.

Project accountants and cash couriers

Millions also moved through the personal names of individuals. On 24 October 2025, Ayemoba Prince Moses received N10,000,000, described as payment to project accountant for launching of ESI mapping, on voucher 1001340568-4. From the same voucher batch on the same day, Chialika Okoruwa Samson received N8,570,556, described as payment to project accountant for a stakeholders meeting in Lagos, and on 29 December 2025 he received a further N6,280,000 as duty tour allowance for an official trip. Deji-Fabikun Olubukola Titilope received N5,343,516.50 on 23 June 2025 for logistics for experts at the Total Energies NOSCP drill exercise, and N5,280,000 on 22 April 2025 as duty tour allowance to field offices. Public procurement law builds its payments around incorporated, tax-registered contractors, not personal names carrying capital sums on two-line descriptions, and the gratification provisions of section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 exist for patterns of exactly this kind.

One hangar project. Six contractors. N1,035,524,937.05 paid out under Chukwuemeka Woke, with about N2.69 billion more implied by the arithmetic of the April mobilisations. A consultancy paid to a name with no registration record located. An erosion contract in a state with no oil to spill. Millions routed through project accountants. That is the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency in its own payment records.