By Henry Umahi
The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and its chairman, Alhaji MB Shehu are in the centre of a storm, with allegation of refusing to approve and disburse payment to a company, which had concluded a job, but trying to pay another firm that had not even been registered when the job was concluded.
As a result, the company, Zilcon Higgs International Limited, which executed the contract, on behalf of nine oil producing states, has petitioned President Bola Tinubu asking for his intervention in not only approving payment to it but also taking action against officials at RMAFC, who are at the centre of the controversy.
Zilcon Higgs said it was contracted by governors of nine oil-producing states to recover USD 2,471,040,983.38 omitted in the recommendation of the FAAC Post-Mortem Committee in an earlier refund to the states, which it did, but at the point of paying the agreed commission, the RMAFC, in connivance with others, is trying to deny it its entitlement.
In the petition to President Tinubu, with accompanying documents, signed by the Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Sampson Orji, Zilcon Higgs stated: “In 2022, this firm, having previously handled several of such recoveries for the oil-producing states, initiated a class action in a civil proceeding to recover the above sum of money for the oil-producing states, being an amount omitted in the recommendation of the FAAC Post-Mortem Committee in an earlier refund to the states, arising from unpaid 13% derivation accruable from withdrawals from Excess Crude Account between 2005 and 2010.
“We have records of the letters we wrote to each of the states, including Imo State, their responses and their engagement letters to us. In November 2022, we received a judgement in favour of the states in suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1924/2022, attached as Annexure A.”
The letter from Zilcon Higgs to RMAFC dated September 30, 2022, in Daily Sun possession, reads: ‘We have been briefed and our consultancy services retained by the oil producing states to wit: reconcile the shortfall in the ongoing monthly deductions.”
The petition to President Tinubu, stated: “Our pre-action notice to the Chairman of RMAFC dated 30th September, 2022, was very explicit on our brief from the states and the findings at the time, attached as Annexure B.
“Our letter to Mr Chairman dated 16th December 2022, by which we forwarded copies of our letters of engagement from the respective states is also attached as Annexure C.”
Daily Sun has a letter dated December 16, 2022 from Zilcon Higgs to RMAFC, which stated: ‘Pursuant to our letter dated 7th December 2022 in the above subject, and in further proof of our locus standing in the class action on behalf of the beneficiary states, we insist that we have the consent of all nine states in the action. It has therefore become imperative that we forward to your good offices some of the engagements by the states…”
The petition added: “Being the lead Judgement debtor, we wrote Mr Chairman (RMAFC) a letter dated 7th December, 2022, requesting implementation of the judgement, attached as Annexure D.”
The company said in response to its letter, the chairman of RMAFC constituted a Committee to recommend implementation of the Judgement.
It said: “The committee comprised representatives of the States’ Commissioners of Finance and their Accountants General, Directors from the office of the Minister for Finance, Office of the Accountant-General of The Federation, RMAFC and Staffers of this Firm, Zilcon Higgs International Ltd. The committee was headed by one Alhaji Tanimo of RMAFC (see attached letter of invitation from the RMAFC and membership of our company to the Committee marked as Annexure E.
Daily Sun has a letter from RMAFC to Zilcon Higgs on the committee the company referred to, which reads: ‘You may wish to note that a meeting was held on 22nd December 2022 between the Commission and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation on the implementation of the Federal High Court judgement delivered in Suit No FHC/ABJ/CS/1924/2022… It was resolved that an ad-hoc reconciliation committee be set up.’)
Zilcon Higgs in it petition to Tinubu said: “Mid-way into the deliberations of the committee, Mr. Chairman (RMFAC) without notice to the Committee, personally deposed to an affidavit with which he instructed his personal lawyer to file an application in court to set aside the same judgement for which he inaugurated the Committee. This action of Mr. Chairman, expectedly stalled further deliberations of the committee and made it subjudiced.
Upon the hearing of his application in court, after several adjournments, same was dismissed for ‘abysmally lacking in merit.’”
Zilcon Higgs said it wrote several letters to the RMFAC Chairman on the subject matter, particularly referring to a letter dated April 26,
2023, “by which we further demanded the implementation of the judgement after the Court ruling of 6th April, 2023, attached as Annexure F.”
The company said shockingly to it, another company was registered and attributed to having done the job and RMAFC started making arrangements to pay the commission to it.
Zilcon Higgs said: “In April, 2023, Mr. Chairman found a collaborator in one of the South East Governors … He got the same individual to author a letter of disclaimer on our company, five months after we had concluded the said work and obtained judgement on behalf of the oil-producing states. It was shocking as it was scary, given that the same state exchanged correspondence with us on the same matter and had benefited from our earlier recovery in 2020, see attached marked Annexure G.
“Again, on June 24th 2023, the same governor, curiously issued a letter of engagement to a yet-to-be registered company for the same recovery we had concluded, same subject, same amount, and signed as Chairman of ‘Oil and gas producing States Forum’, see attached marked Annexure H.”
The company said on July 26, 2023, a company known as Tiaras White Consult Ltd. was registered, see attached CAC Status Report marked Annexure I, for the sole purpose of claiming to have done an already concluded work, eight months after Zilcon Higgs had obtained judgement on the said work.
The status report from the Corporate Affairs Commission on Tiaras White Consults Ltd, with Daily Sun, revealed that the company was registered on July 26, 2023 with registration number: 7069595.
Zilcon Higgs said that on August 8, 2023, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, under the Chairmanship of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazak, issued a letter to Tiaras White Consult Ltd. as consultant to the Oil-Producing States on the concluded work, referring to its application of June 15, 2023, when the company was yet to
be registered (attached as Annexure J.) Tiaras was only registered on July 6, 2023 and the letter said it applied on June 15, 2023, for a job already concluded in 2022.
According to Zilcon Higgs, shortly after the registration of Tiaras, all of its (Zilcon Higgs) documents in RMAFC office, was passed off to the new company, replicated and copied verbatim all our work in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1924/2022, and filed the same.
“No sooner had they filed the suit than they quickly abridged the hearing date from 2nd January 2024, to 15th December, 2023. The office of the Chairman of RMAFC …hired an external solicitor for Accountant General of the Federation without recourse to the OAG and caused same to sign off an obnoxious ‘Terms of Settlement’ on the 8th of December 2023, attached as Annexure K.”
Zilcon Higgs said that they “deceived the court to adopt the so-called Terms of Settlement as ‘Consent Judgement’ on Friday the 15th, December, 2023, being the last sitting day of the Court for the year 2023. The office of the Honourable Minister of Finance and Accountant General’s office have since filed disclaimers
against the ‘consent Judgement’, as they both were never parties to the …Terms of Settlement that culminated in the ‘Consent Judgement.’”
The company said that the RMAFC Chairman thereafter moved to implement the ‘Consent Judgement’ on the next week day, being Monday the 18th December, 2023, while foot-dragging on Zilcon Higgs, which got a legitimate Judgement of November 2022.
It said that on December 18, 2023, the RMAFC Chairman authored a PAYMENT MANDATE letter to Accountant General of the Federation, mandating her to begin the payment same December month and to pay to Tiaras a consultancy and legal fee of over USD 330,000,000, based on the consent judgement obtained the previous Friday.
Zilcon Higgs said: “Upon our petition in December, 2023 to the Accountant General of the Federation, the Honourable Minister of Finance and EFCC annexing all the documents to prove our case, the payment, thankfully, was halted.
“Notwithstanding the above scenario, Mr. Chairman wrote another PAYMENT MANDATE letter to the Honourable Minister of Finance dated 12th January
2024, insisting on the… payment but which was ignored by the Honourable Minister.”
The company said that it had petitioned EFCC,which commenced an investigation. According to it, “as soon as the EFCC commenced investigation on our petition and following Mr.
Chairman’s denial of our engagement by the states, we were asked to submit our letters of engagement from the oil-producing states, which we gladly did. The letters were later returned to us after several months of investigation and
verification with the states. The EFCC further interrogated Alhaji M.B Shehu and all the staff of RMAFC who were privy to the subject matter.”
Zilcon Higgs expressed shock that the RMAFC Chairman, in his response to EFCC “continued to deny knowledge of our work and our engagement letters in spite of his acknowledged receipt of our letter dated 16th December
2022, by which we forwarded to him our letters of engagement from the respective states. Copies of these letters are still in his custody as well as with the EFCC, while the original copies are with us.
“Mr. Chairman (RMAFC) has continuously been authoring letters to deny our work and insisting on the proxy company to receive consultancy fees for work he knew nothing about. Only recently,… Mr. Chairman still ignored the pending petition in EFCC and subsisting court action which he acknowledged in his letter dated 18th January, 2024, attached as Annexure M, and continues to persuade the Honourable Minister to begin the Payment, attached as Annexure N.”
Zilcon Higgs told President Tinubu that the “states who are entitled to their payment based solely on the judgement of 29th November, 2022 are being systematically denied the same, in spite of the constitutional mandate for such payment, just as we are being denied our consultancy fee as a result of this.”
It called for the investigation of the RMAFC Chairman, stating: “Mr. President, paragraph 31, part 1 of the third Schedule of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) sub. B, states inter alia, that Members of the Commission are appointed by Mr. President as those ‘who in the opinion of Mr. President are persons of UNQUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY with requisite qualifications and experience’”.
Zilcon Higgs requested that “the EFCC come clean with the report of their honest findings of the petition we brought before it on the 1st of February, 2024 on the subject matter, as “JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.”
The company also demanded that RMAFC steps aside pending investigation of the case.
“Let Alhaji M.B. Shehu step aside from continuing to preside as Chairman of RMAFC within the period of this matter,” it said.
