Exclusive: How one Akwa Ibom traditional ruler shared N400 million oil spill compensation money to himself and family

Edidem Akpabio Udo Ukpa, Paramount Ruler, Onna Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State

By Nse Peter

THINK AKWA IBOM! is in possession of documents which reveal how the paramount ruler of Onna Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Edidem Akpabio Udo Ukpa in 2011 allocated several millions of oil spill compensation money to himself and his family through questionable award of construction contracts.

The money, said to be about N400 million, was given to Onna late 2011 by Mobil Producing Nigeria, a subsidiary of oil giant, ExxonMobil, as compensation for the 2010 oil spill from Mobil’s offshore facility which destroyed aquatic lives and farmlands in the area.

Other coastal local government areas affected by the spill – Ibeno, Esit Eket, and Eket – also received compensation from Mobil.

But in a rather shocking negation to every known procedure and rule of contract administration in modern civilization, the paramount ruler of Onna, Edidem Akpabio Udo Ukpa was to personally set up a committee which he made himself the chairman, to administer the oil spill compensation fund from Mobil.

Akpabio Ukpa, apparently using the committee to give a semblance of credibility to his actions, drew up list of projects in different villages in Onna and the contractors to handle them. Ukpa’s committee, THINK AKWA IBOM! gathered, was surprisingly not responsible nor reporting to any authority; not to Mobil which handed in the N400 million oil spill compensation money, nor the local government council which was completely excluded from being part of the committee.

One document, for instance, shows how a contract for the building of a parameter fence around the paramount ruler’s palace, a medium size residential building, in Ikot Edor village was awarded at a rather exorbitant cost of N25 million to Edor & Sons Investments Ltd, a company said to be owned by the paramount ruler himself.

Several village heads and other local chiefs who are known allies of Akpabio Udo Ukpa, some of them members of the committee, also benefited from the controversial contracts.

“He (Akpabio Ukpa) was acting like a small god. Nobody could question him,” says Mr. Okon William, the chairman of the then interim local administration in Onna, otherwise known as transition council. “Even as chairman of the council, I was completely kept out of it (the administration of the oil spill compensation).”

HINK AKWA IBOM! asked Okon William why a traditional chief could preside over the sharing of money meant for the people while he (Okon William) as the head of the local government as at that time became irrelevant. “We came into the office when the money was almost within the reach of the paramount ruler. I had personally raised issues on why the local government council should have been involved in whatever the paramount ruler was doing as at that time, but we weren’t allowed. I took up the matter at the state government level, but unfortunately the man who was the chief of staff to Governor Godswill Akpabio, Mr. Godwin Afangideh asked us to withdraw and allow the paramount ruler handle it, since he was already on it,” Mr. William responded.

“I still feel bitter about the whole thing,” says Okon William.

Edor & Sons Investments Ltd, the company that is said to be owned by Akpabio Ukpa, was also awarded a N36 million contract from the oil spill compensation money for the supply of three 18-seater coaster buses, each for the Onna Traditional Rulers Council (TRC), the women, and the youth of Onna. But Mr. Dan Nwa, the president of Onna Youth Council told THINK AKWA IBOM! in a telephone interview two months ago that the youths never received any bus from Ukpa and his committee.

A source in Onna who did not want his name mention said the paramount ruler instead of buying the bus meant for the entire youths of Onna, corruptly shared about N4 million to a few youth leaders and pocketed the remaining N8 million. “We have been seeing the bus he bought for the women, but I am not sure if he (the paramount ruler) bought any for the TRC,” the source said.

Edor & Sons Investments Ltd got yet another contract valued at about N10 million to construct a community hall at Nung Akpan Udo Essien community in Okom village, Onna.

Ukpa’s wife, known and addressed in local parlance as ‘Eka Onna’, meaning ‘our great mother’ also got a N12 million contract through her Eka Onna Enterprise to renovate the vice principal’s office and the assembly hall at  Community Secondary School, Okat in Onna. There is suspicion that Eka Onna Enterprise may not have even been a registered company as it is required of by the Nigerian laws.

Ukpa’s first son, Mr. Michael Ukpa aka Slym, like his siblings, also benefited from the contract bonanza; his company, Slym Amka Global Services Ltd was awarded N11.9 million contract to renovate the community hall in Ikot Edor, Onna. One of Slym’s sisters named Agnes also got her share – a N8.5 million contract for the renovation of the head master’s quarters in one of the primary schools.

In one of the documents in THINK AKWA IBOM!’s possession, the paramount ruler informed Mobil of his decision to substitute nine contractors with new ones, without stating any reason. “Please find attached table with above replacements duly done accordingly. The attached table therefore supersedes the former table. This is to ensure that you are properly guided on issuance of cheques,” he wrote in the signed letter to Mobil. This, in addition to the fact that Ukpa cornered about N60.5 million worth of projects to his Ikot Edor village alone, while some villages in Onna had non in the sharing of the oil spill compensation, is just a proof of how powerful and manipulative the 85-year old monarch could be.

Once bitten by their own paramount ruler, Onna people now seem to be twice shy. A group known as Onna Solidarity Assembly which accused Akpabio Udo Ukpa of collecting ‘8% of contract value’ as bribe from all the contractors that handled the 2011 controversial community projects in Onna, recently raised an alarm, alleging that the chairman of Onna Local Government council, Mr. Ufot Sunday is about conniving with the paramount ruler to mismanage another oil spill compensation of N3.5 billion given to the area by Mobil. THINK AKWA IBOM! has confirmed from various sources that Mobil is planning to pay some huge compensation to Onna for a recent oil spill, but it is however uncertain if the money has been paid yet.

Onna Solidarity Assembly, in a paid advertorial, says that they are worried that the chairman of Onna, Ufot Sunday has already directed that a joint bank account be opened for Onna and Mobil at UBA bank, without the chairman first discussing with the people of Onna on what the money will be used for and, most importantly, how to escape the Ukpa factor.

Akpabio Udo Ukpa and his family may have raked in about N150 million from the 2011 oil spill compensation paid to Onna Local Government Area by Mobil, according to Onna Solidarity Assembly.

The group demands that the Onna council chairman disband any committee he and the paramount ruler must have set up for the management of the oil spill compensation money that is meant for the area, in addition to convening ‘a broad based meeting of stakeholders to agree on the management of the funds, to wit form a committee that will steer’.  

“You and the paramount ruler must excuse yourselves as members of the committee and act as respectable patrons, arbiters in times of misunderstanding of the ground rules that must first be set,” the group tells the council chairman in the advertorial.

The public affairs manager of Mobil, Rita Umoren told THINK AKWA IBOM! that she was not aware of any oil spill compensation from Mobil to Onna, and that she was not competent to speak on the matter.

Contrary to the thinking of Onna Solidarity Assembly, the paramount ruler of Onna, Edidem Akpabio Udo Ukpa seems to have parted ways with the Onna council chairman, Ufot Sunday Akpan because of disagreement over who controls the billion naira oil spill compensation money being expected from Mobil.

The paramount ruler two weeks ago bought a page in the Akwa Ibom State-owned newspaper, Weekend Pioneer to reprimand the Onna council chairman for “opting to constitute an illegal Committee on the Mobil Producing Nigeria Oil Spill Projects.” About 80 signatures, including that of the two clan heads and almost all the village heads in Onna endorsed the advertorial published on Friday, 26 April, 2013.

Ukpa claims he is the rightful person to manage the oil spill compensation money.

“It is the extant policy of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that matters and affairs affecting oil producing communities including payment royalties and community development projects should be routed through the traditional rulers of the oil producing communities,” he and his loyalists say in the advertorial.