Exclusive: FERMA MD Chukwuemeka Agbasi Nominated By Minister Umahi Leaves Federal Roads To Fix And Spent N3.78 Billion In David Umahi University

Secrets Reporters

The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) spent ₦3,779,695,017.86 building and repairing roads inside universities, teaching hospitals and medical centres between November 2023 and June 2026, a staggering thirty-four payments for internal campus roads at institutions far from any federal highway, SecretsReporters can authoritatively report.

The single biggest cluster landed on one day: February 24, 2025, when FERMA paid ₦1,278,278,164.01 in three near-identical tranches for asphalting roads at the David Umahi Federal University of Medical Sciences, Uburu, in Ebonyi State, a federal university named after the sitting Minister of Works, David Umahi who supervises FERMA.

The three tranches

Three sections of the same campus road project, three contracts numbered EMR/24-22, 24-23 and 24-24, three payments on the same day, each a shade above ₦426 million. The Public Procurement Act requires that procurements be packaged to ensure competition and value; where a single project is divided into same-day tranches of nearly identical value, the Bureau of Public Procurement’s rules against contract splitting demand that the procurement records be opened.

Section 1 went to Stoneworks Global Investments Ltd for ₦426,055,416.21. Section 2 went to Agelink Network Limited for ₦426,197,534.89. Section 3 went back to Stoneworks Global Investments Ltd for ₦426,025,212.91. All three payments were made on February 24, 2025.

The contractors

Agelink Network Limited is, by its own corporate classification, an advertising agency — RC 426726, incorporated in 2001, though three different addresses have appeared on its records. Its entire documented government contract history sits in Ebonyi State under David Umahi’s governorship (2015–2023): hospital blocks, exercise books, LED streetlight fittings and textbooks. Secrets Reporters investigated the company in September 2022 over an exercise-books contract priced at ₦1,376 per book. No public record of road construction experience was found for the company, yet FERMA paid it ₦426.2 million for road asphalting. The directors and shareholders of Agelink were not found in public records.

Stoneworks Global Investments Ltd, which took two of the three sections worth ₦852.1 million was registered June 7, 2023 which is roughly 20 months before the February 2025 payments, less than three years.

There is no verified personal or corporate link between either company and FERMA’s Managing Director, Engr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi, or the board chairman, Engr. Imam Ibrahim Kashim Imam. The notable overlap is geographic and temporal: Agelink’s contract history is rooted in Ebonyi under then-Governor Umahi, now the Works Minister; the campus itself bears the minister’s name. That is a circumstantial and geographic overlap, not a personal tie.

Beyond David Umahi University

The campus-road spending did not stop in Ebonyi. FERMA paid ₦299,332,188.09 to Saloguru Nigeria Limited for roads and drains at the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State, on February 26, 2025. It paid ₦276,942,127.21 to Heriprom Engineering Limited for the Nnamdi Azikiwe University campus in Anambra State, and ₦213,843,118.09 to Zornul Nigeria Limited for the internal road network of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, both on March 25, 2024.

On November 22, 2024, the agency paid ₦84,413,142.96 to Laddo Biri Global Services for roads and drains at the Federal Medical Centre, Katsina. On September 14, 2025, it paid ₦128,254,726.92 to Barqoma International for the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital road network in Kano. The investigation’s ownership research did not cover Saloguru, Zornul, Laddo Biri or Barqoma; their directors and shareholders were not established from public records.

FERMA’s establishing mandate covers federal roads. Internal campus and hospital roads belong to the institutions or their parent ministries. Every naira spent inside a university gate is a naira not spent on the collapsing federal highways the agency was created to maintain and the Fiscal Responsibility Act requires that public money be spent efficiently on its appropriated purpose.