The Governor of Benue State, Hyacinth Alia, has taken his corruption to another level! This time, the governor is using the Benue Investment and Property Company Limited (BIPC) as a conduit for diverting assets meant for the state to his private property. Governor Alia is perpetuating this fraud through his kinsman, Raymond Asemakaha, who is the Managing Director of BIPC.
After selling many shares belonging to Benue State in some companies such as Zenith Bank, where he sold ₦12 billion worth of shares, Alia, through Asemakaha, decided to establish a number of enterprises which they claim belong to the Benue State Government.
Investigations by the Network for Transparent Governance (NTG) at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) have, however, shown that all the companies are privately owned by Governor Alia through his proxy, Asemakaha. These enterprises include a water factory, bakery, brewery, microfinance bank, fertilizer company, and nails factory.
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Asemakaha is the major shareholder with ₦50 million worth of shares in each of the companies, which are only registered using the name of the government, but the real owner is Governor Alia’s procurator, Raymond Asemakaha. All those companies incorporated under the BIPC are owned solely by Alia through Asemakaha! All the so-called investments are his. The Benue State Government has no single share in them. This is an incontestable fact! Anyone can use the Freedom of Information Act to access these records.
The MD of BIPC, Raymond Asemakaha, is the owner of the companies alongside two of his allies, acting on behalf of Governor Alia.
The convention in incorporating public (government) companies, as in the case of Benue State, is that the proprietor of the companies would be the Benue Investment and Property Company Limited (BIPC), which should hold 99% of the shares, not the MD, as Asemakaha has done in the incorporation of all the companies listed above.
In other words, BIPC can incorporate a subsidiary only with the formal consent of the government. However, the Managing Director of BIPC has no authority to go to the CAC and incorporate a company with his name as the proprietor and majority shareholder, as Alia’s proxy Asemakaha has done with several enterprises such as the water factory, bakery, microfinance bank, fertilizer company, brewery, and others.
By law, BIPC Ltd, not its MD, is required to hold the majority shares (99%) in any such company, with any other person holding a minority (1%) of the shares, since two subscribers are required at the establishment of a company.
With the listed companies incorporated in Asemakaha’s name, each with ₦50 million as his personal holdings, how can anyone hold the State Government responsible if these companies violate the fundamental rights of citizens?
Investigations have further revealed that Governor Alia plans to initiate a pseudo-privatization process next year and pretend to have sold all the companies to private investors. However, there will be only one buyer using different names, and that buyer will be the governor himself, acting through his proxies.
NTG urges the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to quickly beam its searchlight on BIPC and other agencies under the government of Hyacinth Alia to arrest this heist before it becomes too late. What the EFCC needs to do urgently is to invite the MD of BIPC Asemakaha for questioning. That will lead the commission to unravel many other facets of corruption under Alia and his thieving gang.
Signed:
Oliver Omenka
Secretary General
Network for Transparent Governance (NTG)
