ReportsNG
Mr Mustapha Abdullahi who sits as DG of the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) swings his pen with reckless joy as he approves public funds, documents seen by ReportsNG has revealed.
Official payment records show that on October 21, 2024, the Energy Commission of Nigeria paid four different companies nearly identical sums for the same described job: 1,171 “3 in 1” solar streetlights. Exclusive Energy Limited got N1,206,169,760. A Four International Resources Nigeria Limited got N1,206,075,615. JRB Solar Investment Limited got N1,206,075,535. A. A. Albasu Nigeria Limited got N1,206,075,535. Three of the four amounts are identical to the naira; the fourth differs by N80.
Five months later, on March 14, 2025, the pattern repeated. Eleven companies received N390,072,558 each for “ECN inscribed solar poles (390Nos.) with fittings.” One got N390,072,557, a single naira less. Each carried matching VAT, withholding tax and retention entries, as if the payments were cloned and the company names swapped. On December 31, 2025, the very last day of the year, the DG wired four more companies exactly N390,072,558 each for 100-watt solar streetlights in four different locations.
Open competitive bidding under the Public Procurement Act 2007 is supposed to produce different prices from different bidders; identical awards to different companies on the same day are precisely the footprint of contract splitting and rigged awards, conduct the Act’s anti-splitting provisions were written to catch. The quartet alone moved N4.82 billion in a day. Add the dozen and the year-end four, and more than N9 billion moved through cloned-value awards. The Public Procurement Act requires that contracts of this magnitude be competitively bid and publicly advertised; no public procurement notices for these streetlight awards could be located.
The companies behind the quartet are a study in contrast. JRB Solar Investment Limited has been on the Corporate Affairs Commission register since 2010, and A. A. Albasu since 2011. Exclusive Energy Limited, the largest single recipient at N1.72 billion across four payments, is registered since December 2013 and shares a director, Badamosi Alimi Rauf, with JRB Constructions Company Limited, another commission payee. A Four International Resources, incorporated in August 2017, took its entire N1.21 billion in a single payment.
Paying four companies the same money for the same job on the same day is the kind of arrangement the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 exists to punish when public officers confer corrupt advantage through their office. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Establishment Act 2004 empowers investigators to pursue exactly this class of suspected economic crime, which the Network Against Corruption and Trafficking (NACAT) petitioned him for, leading to his arrest by the EFCC in 2026 yet nothing was done by the government since the arrest and questioning.
