By Secrets Reporters
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), under the leadership of Dr. Ezra Yakusak was charged with growing Nigeria’s non-oil export earnings, is confronting troubling questions about its own financial housekeeping after a review of its 2023 financial year uncovered ₦341,905,708.00 in irregularities across three separate findings along with a striking failure by the Council to meet its own transparency obligations.
At the heart of the matter is the largest finding: ₦326,604,153.00 paid for international travels without proper approval. For an agency whose core mission involves representing Nigeria at trade missions and export promotion events abroad, the absence of documented approval for travel spending on this scale is particularly hard to explain. A further ₦15,301,555.00 sat as unretired cash advances money released to officials that was never accounted for. Separately, reviewers found that NEPC failed to submit its annual reports to the President as statutorily required.
The 2023 financial year at the centre of this file straddles a leadership transition at the Council. Dr. Ezra Yakusak served as Executive Director and CEO for the majority of the year, until Mrs. Nonye Ayeni was appointed by President Bola Tinubu and assumed office in October 2023. Both leaders bear responsibility for this file Yakusak for the portion of the year under his watch, and Ayeni for the remainder, as well as for the ongoing obligation to resolve these findings and bring the Council’s annual reporting into compliance.
An agency whose daily work involves sending officials abroad to promote Nigerian exports carries a heightened duty to ensure every trip is properly approved and fully accounted for precisely because international travel spending is an area especially vulnerable to abuse when documentation is loose.
The rules said to have been broken here are specific and well established. Public Service Rules require documented approval for all official international travel, a requirement violated by the ₦326.6 million in travel spending that lacked it. Treasury rules require the prompt retirement of all cash advances violated by the ₦15.3 million left unretired. And the statutory requirement for NEPC to submit annual reports to the President was not met at all.
