By The Court of Appeal of Nigeria, the court that sits directly below the Supreme Court and settles the fate of governors and senators, bought its official vehicles in 2025 through a tender in which one man signed the bid opening register on behalf of three different companies, the one established independent dealer in the room was dropped without a single letter, and the biggest winner demanded full payment of N3,896,874,999.94 on the very day its award was approved, under an award letter that gave it four weeks from the signing of the contract agreement to deliver the vehicles.
Sources within the Court of Appeal judicial system who spoke to SecretsReporters described an exercise arranged from inside the court's own Procurement Department, with the winners settled before the first envelope was opened. Documents in possession of SecretsReporters bear that description out, much of it in the court's own handwriting.
A Tender Built to Have No Contest
The exercise covered the court's vehicle needs in three lots. Lot 1A was for one unit of the 2025 Model Mercedes Benz S Class S580 and one unit of the 2025 Model Nissan Patrol Sport Edition. Lot 1B was for two units of the 2024 Model Toyota Hilux, one unit of the 2025 Model Toyota Land Cruiser VXR 3.5L Twin Turbo and one unit of the 2025 Model Toyota Land Cruiser Prado TXL 2.4L. Lot 1C was for twenty-five units of the Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.
The procurement ran between May and June 2025 by selective tendering, a method under which the court invites a chosen circle of firms instead of opening the contest to the market. The Federal Judiciary Tenders Board, the board that handles judiciary contracts, records that fifteen technical bids were opened on Tuesday, 20th May, 2025 at the Court of Appeal Training Room in Abuja, in the presence of the bidding firms, observers and representatives of the Federal Judiciary Due Process Committee. The attendance register for that opening carries eight bidding companies.
Sources within the court told SecretsReporters that of the firms in the circle, only two were independent, established motor dealers: Kojo Motors and Skywise Auto. Skywise Auto pulled out before the opening, the sources say, after watching the pattern of procurement in the court over time, and its name appears nowhere on the register. The remaining companies, the sources say, were arranged within the Procurement Department to give the exercise the appearance of a competition it never had.
One Man Signed for Three Companies
The register is a single handwritten sheet, and it gives the game away. One representative, Yahaya Hussaini, signed the register as the man for HDM Global Limited. The same Yahaya Hussaini signed again as the representative of Hazdokas Limited. He signed a third time as the representative of May Eagle Motors. Three separate bidders in the same tender, one signature.
A second representative, Michael Eze, signed for Kefiano Motors and signed again for EPI Mgt Ltd. The other firms on the register were Da-Issa Charbite Intl Ltd, represented by Alome Dominic, Kojo Motors Ltd, represented by Commodore Odinakpa L.C., and K-Buwod Integrated, represented by a man named Emeka. Two observers from non-governmental organisations, the Abechi Development Foundation and the Institute for Peace and Development, watched the bids opened over this field.
The sources say Hazdokas and May Eagle are owned or controlled by the same individual, while Buscar Vehicles and Kefiano answer to another individual, and that the companies forwarded for evaluation were companies associated with the former Head of the Procurement Department and with highly placed officials of the court, including the Chief Registrar.
The Shortlist Was a Closed Circle of Two
On 23rd May, 2025, three days after the opening, the Federal Judiciary Tenders Board wrote to the Chief Registrar conveying the result of the technical evaluation. In each lot, exactly two firms were shortlisted. For Lot 1A, Buscar Vehicles Limited and Ladito Global Limited. For Lot 1B, Ladito Global Limited and Buscar Vehicles Limited. For Lot 1C, Hazdokas West Africa Limited, written in the notice as Hazadokas, and May Eagles Motors. The board certified that each of them had fulfilled the requirements as set out in the advertisement and the Public Procurement Act, 2007, and was invited onward to the opening of financial bids.
Kojo Motors, which had sat in the room at the opening and which the sources describe as the only apparently independent and competitive bidder in the process, is on no shortlist. The board's own notice quoted Section 23(7) of the Public Procurement Act, which obliges a procuring entity to promptly notify every supplier of whether or not it has been pre-qualified, and Section 23(9), which obliges it to communicate the grounds for disqualification to any bidder who asks. The sources say Kojo Motors received neither: no disqualification notice, no debriefing, no letter of any kind. It was simply never called again.
Winners Named Before the Financial Bids Were Opened
On 29th May, 2025, the office of the Chief Registrar wrote to the Chairman of the Federal Judiciary Tenders Board under the heading Notification and Forwarding of Financial Bids Document for the Procurement of Motor Vehicles. The letter, signed by Dr. Nkechi C. Agu for the Chief Registrar, Umar Mohammed Bangari, Esq., described the six shortlisted pairings in the court's own words as the Successful Bidders, and forwarded their financial bid documents to the board for opening. Lot 1A: Buscar Vehicles Ltd and Ladito Global Ltd. Lot 1B: Ladito Global Ltd and Buscar Vehicles Ltd. Lot 1C: Hazdokas West Africa and May Eagle Motors.
Two Awards Worth N4,770,131,999.94
The board met on 27th June, 2025 and approved the awards the same day. Both award letters are signed by Elvis Amadi, FCA, ACTI, CISA, Secretary of the board, for the Chairperson.
Buscar Vehicles Limited, of 56 Opebi Road, Ikeja, Lagos, took Lot 1A, the supply of one unit of Mercedes-Benz S-Class 580, 2025 Model and one unit of Nissan Patrol, Sport Edition, 2025 Model, for N873,257,000.00, inclusive of all taxes, with a delivery period of four weeks from the date of signing the contract agreement.
Hazdokas West Africa Limited, of UYK HEXAHUB, Area 11, Plot 1077A Galanga Crescent, Off Uke Street, Garki, Abuja, took Lot 1C, the supply of twenty-five units of Toyota Prado Jeep, 2.7L, VX, 2025 Model, for N3,896,874,999.94, an average of N155.87 million on every one of the twenty-five vehicles, with the same four-week delivery period.
The vehicle awarded was not the vehicle that had been tendered. The board's shortlist notice described Lot 1C as twenty-five units of the 2024 Model Toyota Land Cruiser Prado FX, 2.7L. The award letter supplied twenty-five units of the 2025 Model Prado VX. The model year and the trim both changed between evaluation and award, and nothing in the trail of documents explains the change.
Full Payment Demanded on the Day of the Award
Hazdokas's request for payment is dated 27th June, 2025, the same date as the award letter itself. In it, the company stated that the twenty-five Prados had been supplied and requested payment of the full N3,896,874,999.94 into its bank account. The award it cited in its own letter allowed four weeks from the signing of the contract agreement for delivery, a period that had not begun to run on the day the company said the vehicles were already supplied and asked for every kobo.
The request travelled through the court's accounts chain in handwriting. It carries the initials DFA, the full figure written out again in ink with the words Approved pls, a signature sitting above the printed name Umar, and a further signature dated 30th July, 2025.
The Retired Officer Still Running the Procurement
The sources say the exercise was driven by the court's former Head of Procurement, who held the office in an acting capacity, had retired from the service and was retained on a contract appointment, and continued to oversee and facilitate procurement activities from that seat. In the service structure, the sources say, the officer was never a designated procurement officer at all: he was a Deputy Director (Special Duties).
That arrangement stands against a written directive of the Federal Government. By a circular of 14th June, 2017, reference number 59780/S.I/T.I/117, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation prohibited officers on other cadres from performing procurement functions where career procurement officers are available, directing that only officers employed as Procurement Officers or converted to the Procurement Officer cadre are permitted to conduct procurement functions. The circular records that the posting of officers outside their professional cadres violates Public Service Rule 020506(ii), and that the use of unqualified and untrained personnel to conduct procurement functions is one of the major factors that has contributed to the inability of several ministries, departments and agencies to comply with the Public Procurement Act, 2007.
What the Companies Register Shows
Hazdokas West Africa Limited, the N3.9 billion winner, is a registered company, incorporated on 9th March, 2008 with registration number 735329, and active. Its name is spelled four different ways across the court's own paper: Hazdokas on its own letterhead, Hasdokas in the award letter, Hazadokas in the board's shortlist notice and Hazdokas in the handwritten register. Corporate records searches by SecretsReporters place two directors on its file, Hajiya Hadiza Umar and Hajiya Fatima Sani.
Buscar Vehicles Limited is registered, incorporated on 4th September, 2013 with registration number 1140152, and active on the register. The sources say the statutory and corporate compliance documents inside its bid, the certificates every bidder is required to keep current, had expired, some of them dating back to 2020, and that the company was nevertheless considered qualified and awarded the contract.
Ladito Global Limited, shortlisted against Buscar in two of the three lots, is registered, incorporated on 13th February, 2013 with registration number 1096642, but it carries an inactive flag on the companies register. It was still certified as having fulfilled every requirement in both lots.
For May Eagle Motors, the only other name shortlisted against Hazdokas for the twenty-five Prados, the public companies search returned no company under that name, and none under May Eagle Nigeria Limited, the name the sources inside the court use for it. A wider corporate records search by SecretsReporters found a May Eagle Motors Nigeria Limited, registration number 1615673, incorporated on 19th September, 2019 and flagged inactive, at Duplex No 7, Mabushi Shopping Complex, Abuja, with two persons of significant control named on its file: Umar Hadiza and Umar Dorcas Isoiza. The records located so far do not establish whether the Umar Hadiza who controls the Prado winner's only shortlisted rival is the same person as the Hajiya Hadiza Umar who sits as a director of the winner itself. Both companies were nevertheless certified by the board as having fulfilled every requirement. For HDM Global Limited, whose man signed the register, there is likewise no company registered under that exact name. And while the sources name Kefiano Nigeria Limited as Buscar's linked partner, no company is registered under that name either: the Kefiano trading company on the records is Kefiano Global Concepts Ltd, registered in 2008 at the Kefiano Autos address on Muhammadu Buhari Way in Abuja, while a Kefiano Motors Nigeria Limited was incorporated on 28th August, 2025, two months after the awards in this tender were made.
Kojo Motors Limited, the dealer that was shut out, has stood on the register since 28th November, 1988, with registration number 121581, and it too carries the register's inactive flag.
Receipts Written in Other People's Names
The sources say the paper trail did not end at payment. Store receipt and delivery documentation relating to the supplied vehicles was forged, they say, with vehicles receipted in the names of members of staff of the court who were unaware that they had been recorded as the recipients and signatories for the deliveries.
A Conflict the Code of Conduct Speaks To
The Code of Conduct for Public Officers in the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides that a public officer shall not put himself in a position where his personal interest conflicts, or is likely to conflict, with the discharge of his duties, and it binds every public officer to declare his assets, and the assets of his spouse and his unmarried children under the age of eighteen, on assumption of office, every four years and at the termination of his tenure. The sources inside the court say the companies that divided this tender between them were linked to officials of the court itself, the same officials under whose hands the tender passed from invitation to award to payment.
Hon. Justice Monica Bolna'an Dongban-Mensem has been President of the Court of Appeal since June 2020, and Umar Mohammed Bangari, Esq. has been its Chief Registrar since May 2022. Both held office through every stage of the exercise, from the bid opening of 20th May, 2025 to the approvals of July 2025. The register of that opening still sits in the record with one man's signature written against three companies, in a tender for N4,770,131,999.94 of public money, conducted by the court Nigerians must trust to judge every other institution's obedience to the law.
SecretsReporters contacted the President of the Court of Appeal and the Federal Judiciary Tenders Board for their responses to the findings in this report, but they gave no response as at the time of publishing.
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.
