By Something is rotten in the paper trail of Benue State’s 2026 contracts. The state’s own official award records, published by Governor Hyacinth Alia’s administration, hand N846.3 million in school and health contracts to six companies for which no registration record can be located on the Corporate Affairs Commission register or anywhere else in Nigeria’s public record.
The records are the Benue State Public Procurement Commission’s own register of contract awards for 2026, the open contracting data the state itself publishes. Twelve awards are named in it. Every one of the six companies behind them fails the same test: no registration record, no corporate directory entry, no website, no public footprint outside the award list itself.
THE SCHOOL THE GOVERNOR ATTENDED
A SecretsReporters review begins where the pattern is ugliest. St Francis Primary School, Agidi-Mbatiav, in Gboko Local Government Area, is the primary school Governor Hyacinth Alia himself attended; his First School Leaving Certificate from the school is recorded in his public biography. In 2026 his administration sent that one small school two contracts.
The first, dated 29 April 2026, awarded N165,945,767 to De Raheems Concepts Limited for the construction of a 1,188-metre perimeter fence and gate house around the school. The second, dated 8 January 2026, awarded N17,800,000 to 24hrs Jet Engineering Concepts Ltd for a motorised borehole with a steel overhead stand and solar pump.
Neither company can be found. De Raheems Concepts Limited holds a second award on the same register: N131,413,256, also dated 29 April 2026, for a 903-metre perimeter fence and gate house at LGEA Primary School, Adi-Akakwase, in Vandeikya Local Government Area. Across its two awards the company collected N297,359,023 in public contracts. No registration record for it exists anywhere the register can be searched.
24hrs Jet Engineering Concepts Ltd took a second borehole award on the same 8 January 2026: another N17,800,000, at NKST Primary School, Naka, in Gwer-West Local Government Area. Two boreholes, two schools, one day, and no registration record for the company that collected them.
THE BIGGEST NAME ON THE LIST
Debella Intergrated Links Ltd, the spelling is the state’s own, holds three awards totalling N273,503,567.57. The largest is N134,438,950.50 for a 912-metre perimeter fence at RCM Primary School, Ugye, in Vandeikya. The second is N66,958,970.70 for a 273-metre fence and gate house at LGEA Primary School, KM 2, in Makurdi. The third is N72,105,646.37 for the renovation of RCM Primary School, Poor, in Makurdi.
Under the state’s misspelling and under the corrected spelling alike, no registration record for Debella Intergrated Links Ltd can be located. A company holding more than a quarter of a billion naira in school contracts has no register entry, no directory listing and no website.
THE BOREHOLE PAIRS
Jullot Model City Ltd holds two borehole awards: N26,720,000.50 at LGEA Primary School, Selagi, in Konshisha, and N26,740,500.50 at LGEA Primary School, Adikwase, in Vandeikya, N53,460,501 in all. Joe-Brave Technology Service Ltd holds two more: N23,950,400 at LGEA Primary School, KM 2, Gboko Road, in Makurdi, and N23,920,719.92 at LGEA Primary School, Atsor, in Gwer-East, N47,871,119.92 in all. For neither company can any registration record be located.
THE DENVER CONSULTANCY
The strangest award on the register is not for a fence or a borehole. On 16 July 2026 the Ministry of Health and Human Services awarded N138,500,000 to Mastercare LLC for consultancy services to facilitate the acquisition of medical equipment from Denver, in the United States of America.
LLC is not a form of company known to Nigerian law. No Nigerian registration record exists for the name. A company called MasterCare LLC does exist in Denver, Colorado, registered in that state in August 2021 as a residential care business, and its filings name Paul F Ogedegbe as its registered agent. American health provider records also show a Paul Frank Ogedegbe directing a residential treatment facility in the same city, and a 2016 Nigerian press report on the United States chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party named a Paul Frank Ogedegbe as its youth leader. Whether the Denver care operator, the man in the 2016 party report and the beneficiary of Benue State’s N138.5 million consultancy are the same person is not established by any public record, and SecretsReporters does not claim it. What the record does establish is narrower and worse: Benue State awarded N138.5 million in public money to a name that carries no registration in Nigeria at all.
THE LAW THE AWARDS HAD TO PASS
Under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020, a company or business name that is not registered cannot lawfully carry on business in Nigeria, and an unregistered name cannot enforce its contracts in a Nigerian court. Benue State’s own public procurement law requires the state to evaluate every bidder before award, and a bidder’s legal existence is the first fact that evaluation exists to establish. Twelve awards passed that evaluation anyway.
The award register is the Alia administration’s own publication. It records N846,294,211.49 in contracts to six companies that, on the whole of the searchable public record, were never registered anywhere. The fences, the boreholes and the Denver consultancy now wait for somebody in Makurdi to produce the registration papers the state’s own evaluation was supposed to demand first.
Get every exclusive first. Follow Secrets Reporters on WhatsApp:
Follow Secrets Reporters on WhatsAppFollow Secrets Reporters on WhatsApp: join the channel for every exclusive the moment it publishes.
