How Umahi Violated Procurement Law With ₦60bn Contracts For Loyalist

As Nigeria’s 2023 general elections approached, Joshua Okoro stood before students in Ebonyi State and urged them to vote for David Umahi, then the state’s governor and a candidate for the Ebonyi South senatorial seat.

Okoro, who was chairman of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Stakeholders Forum in Ebonyi State and coordinator of the Divine Mandate Students Campaign, was canvassing support for Umahi’s Ebonyi South senatorial seat. He urged the students to “vote wisely” and choose Umahi.

“Your support and vote will be reciprocated in many ways,” Okoro told the students.

At the time of the campaign, Okoro’s appeal appeared to be a routine show of political support.

Umahi won the election, but the Senate seat would not hold him for long. He resigned from the Senate and became President Bola Tinubu’s Minister of Works, one of the most contract-heavy portfolios in the federal government.

Months later, after Umahi became Minister of Works, a company led by Okoro began receiving payments from the ministry.

BusinessDay Investigations found that in just two years, Reinforced Global Resources Limited received N60.1 billion from the Federal Ministry of Works, with its entire recorded federal payment history coming from only the ministry.

GovSpend, the government’s spending platform, revealed how a local firm quickly emerged as a major federal contractor, receiving billions of naira from the Ministry of Works within months of Umahi’s appointment.

N60.1bn spread in 27 payments

Data obtained by BusinessDay Investigations from GovSpend showed payments made by the Federal Ministry of Works to Reinforced Global Resources Ltd totalling N60,078,385,317.43 across twenty-seven transactions between 2024 and 2026.

The largest share went to the construction of Enugu-Abakaliki-Ogoja Road in Ebonyi State, which received N30,063,116,280 in seven payments.

The payment, which began with N2,244,186,047 on 23 May 2024 for engineering design, was followed within three months by three successive advance payments totalling N12,657,209,30; two identical sums of N5,071,860,465 on 18 August 2024 and a payment of N2,513,488,372 on 17 September 2024.

This paper also discovered two matching payments of N6,732,558,140, each made on 8 November 2024, and a final N1,696,604,651 paid on 11 May 2026.

Another project is the construction of the Ugep-Abaomoge-Opkosi Road across Cross River and Ebonyi States where the company received N15,720,597,680 in four payments, starting with N2,244,186,047 on 23 May 2024, followed by large releases of N5,877,144,611 on 11 September 2024, N6,468,197,255 in November 2024, and N1,131,069,767 on 11 May 2026.

Also, the project to construct a 23-span flyover bridge at Eke Obinagu Junction on the Enugu-Abakaliki Road accounted for N8,339,427,089, paid in three installments between May 2024 and February 2025.

Our correspondent also discovered a cluster of seven payments totalling N2,568,412,070.53, mostly for culverts and drainage works, and three identical payments of N561,046,511.60 made on the same day, 18 April 2024, each assigned to a different location.

How N60.1bn flowed into project clusters
Smaller contracts covered the Mpu-Uburu Road with payment of N391,333,257.90; the Amasiri-Nguazu-Edda-Ohafia Road with payment of N1,043,835,082; the culverts at David Umahi Federal Teaching Hospital with payment of N604,028,343.80; the Inkerefi-Ohazara Road with payment of N988,256,500; and an emergency box culvert on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Road, which led to payment of N359,377,014.10.

BusinessDay Investigations independently verified Reinforced Global Resources’ full payment history, from its 2011 incorporation through 2023, and found no federal contracts during that period.

It was discovered that the company’s government contracting activity began only on 18 April 2024, eight months after Umahi took charge of the ministry which has now become its only federal projects client.

Before the N60bn payments

Long before Umahi became the minister, findings by BusinessDay Investigations showed that Reinforced Global Resources Ltd had been a significant beneficiary of the former governor.

Reinforced Global Resources was established in 2011, six months after Umahi resigned from Brass Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited, to become deputy governor of Ebonyi State.

Although the company did not secure any government contract until 2016, a year after Umahi eventually became the governor of the state.

One of the contracts the company was awarded was the $150 million Abakaliki Ring Road project in 2021, where Umahi had listed Reinforced Global Resources Ltd among the consortium of contractors awarded sections of the major state project. Umahi had borrowed the project funding from the federal government.

Among other projects, the company executed under Umahi was the construction of drainage and earthworks on the road leading to the School of Nursing in Uburu, Ohaozara Local Government Area.

BusinessDay Investigations gathered that at the time, Reinforced Global Resources Ltd began small with only three permanent staff and twenty-eight contractual workers, concentrating on government construction projects.

On the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) portal, Reinforced Global Resources Ltd listed Joshua Okoro, Akpa Ejimkonye, and Akpa Hannah as the three shareholders of the company. Okoro has 40 percent of the shares, while Ejimkonye and Hannah hold 30 percent each.

From mason to contractor
Reinforced Global Resources was established in 2011, four years before Okoro, its managing director, obtained his Higher National Diploma in Building Technology from Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, in 2015. He later joined the professional body of builders in 2024 after Umahi’s ministerial appointment.

Before 2011, Okoro started as a mason, doing hands-on building and trade work.

Since 2008, he has continued to serve as the president of the Eminent Club of Uburu. He also served as Chairman of the NANS Stakeholders Forum in Ebonyi State and earlier as Chairman of the Ebonyi Senior Comrades Forum from 2018 to 2021.

Further findings by BusinessDay Investigations show that Reinforced Global’s link to Umahi’s business circle extends beyond the state and federal government contracts.

Our correspondent discovered that Brass Engineering, the firm Umahi founded and chaired until 2011, is named in an ongoing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

In July 2026, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission arraigned Egwuche Gladys, Group Managing Director of Brass Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited, before a Federal High Court in Enugu on a twelve-count charge of money laundering.

The charges stated that between 13 March and 11 April 2023, Gladys and her company accepted twelve separate cash payments of 50,000 dollars each, totalling 600,000 dollars, as part payment for a granite stone crushing line sold to a joint venture of Patan Nigeria Limited and Reinforced Global Resources Limited.

The cash transactions exceeded the legal threshold and were conducted outside the banking system, in breach of the Money Laundering Prevention and Prohibition Act.

Court records and EFCC statements obtained by BusinessDay named Reinforced Global Resources Limited as one of the joint-venture buyers of Brass Engineering in the EFCC case.

Timeline of Umahi’s relationship with Joseph Okoro
A further check by our correspondent into the ownership of Brass Engineering and Construction Nigeria Limited showed that Umahi, the current minister, was listed as one of its founders but resigned in 2011, the same year Reinforced Global Resources Ltd was established.

Separate from the EFCC case, this paper observed that Reinforced Global Resources Ltd has faced local criticism over the quality and pace of work on sections of the Enugu-Abakaliki Expressway, particularly around the Ezzangbo axis, with reports citing incomplete works and safety concerns.

The company listed the dualisation of the Enugu-Abakaliki-Ogoja Road and related projects among its contracts, which received billions of naira from the Ministry of Works.

Procurement breach

Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act 2007 flags undue influence in public contracting processes.

On disclosure, Section 16(6) states that before any company is paid by a ministry, it must declare whether anyone inside that ministry has a financial or personal stake in the company.

Okoro publicly campaigned for Umahi in January 2023 as Chairman of the NANS Stakeholders Forum in Ebonyi State while Umahi sought the Ebonyi South senatorial seat and won it. Months later, the former governor became the Minister of Works.

The Act treats a political association of this kind as a relationship that must be disclosed. If disclosed, the options are either to disqualify the company or for the minister to recuse himself and ensure an independent evaluation committee handles the awards.

BusinessDay also observed that the advance payments on the Enugu-Abakaliki-Ogoja Road contract, roughly 42 percent of the total fee paid on the project was released in quick succession before progress certificates appeared.

All red flags identified in the report
This also contravenes Section 35 of the same Act, which caps mobilisation and initial payment fees at 15 percent of contract value and requires an unconditional bank guarantee plus interim performance certificates before further payments, which was not the case in the Enugu-Abakaliki-Ogoja Road project.

Political links raise concerns
Lukman Adefolahan, a procurement expert, said Umahi and Okoro had clearly breached the Public Procurement Act 2007 as well as the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

Adefolahan said the advance payments warranted scrutiny, noting that the law limits advance payments to 15 percent, except in emergencies.

He stated, “The law says advance payment should not be beyond 15 percent. If a contractor gets advance payment three or four times, that’s a violation of our law.”

As an active member of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, Adefolahan said the relationship between Umahi and Okoro should also have been disclosed.

Adefolahan called for greater public participation and proactive disclosure of procurement information, urging citizens to monitor public projects and “flag any violation of our law.”

He also urged government agencies to make procurement information more accessible and adopt technology to reduce human interference.

“It is high time the government needs to spend money on technology and ICT so that they can reduce human interface in our procurement,” he said.

Firm, Umahi ignore questions

On August 24, 2026, BusinessDay Investigations sent a right-of-reply email to the Ministry of Works seeking details on how Reinforced Global Resources secured N60.1bn exclusively from the ministry over two years.

The email was copied to the office of the Minister of Works and the ministry’s central registry.

No response was received as of the time of filling this report.

BusinessDay also sent an email to Reinforced Global Resources seeking details on projects from the Ministry of Works. The company has also refused to respond.

Efforts to reach the company via numbers on its website also proved abortive. Calls placed to the numbers were unreachable, while there was no response to text and WhatsApp messages.