A confidential set of spreadsheets and photographic files obtained by The Plausible Post alleges that the federal Ministry of Infrastructure paid out ₦184 billion (about $230m) between January 2024 and August 2026 for road maintenance works that never happened. The documents — stamped internally as the “Maintenance Ledger 2024–26” — list 412 separate “repair sites” across Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta states, each tied to companies that investigators say cannot be traced to real premises or staff.
The Ledger shows recurring payments of between ₦7 million and ₦42 million (roughly $8,700–$52,000) per site to a cluster of firms whose registration addresses lead to the same Lagos mailbox and to accounts in three small offshore jurisdictions. Alongside the payments were photo files and SMS confirmations intended to satisfy the ministry’s digital checks; forensic analysis of the images' metadata by independent analysts contracted by this newspaper shows dozens were taken with the same camera within a single 48‑hour period in 2025, yet claimed to be months apart and hundreds of kilometres away.
Local contractors who say they bid for the same jobs told The Plausible Post they never saw contracts or materials. “We were given purchase orders on paper, then told to wait while the ministry disbursed funds,” said Theo Richardson, a Lagos‑based data analyst who helped comb the Ledger. “But the bank trail ends in two holding companies that have no workforce — and the photos provided as proof were edited with geotags that don’t match the villages named in the invoices.”
They built an entire paper road network and paid it with real public cash.
Theo Richardson, data analyst
The leak has already forced political movement. On Monday the Attorney‑General's office confirmed it had received a referral from the Ministry of Infrastructure and that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had opened a preliminary inquiry. The Senate Committee on Public Procurement announced an emergency hearing for Wednesday to summon ministry officials and the four firms named most often in the Ledger. A senior Senate source said several bank accounts listed in the files had been provisionally frozen pending forensic review.
Civil society organisations and victims' groups called the revelations an assault on fragile public services. “This is not just theft of money; it is theft of trust and mobility for communities that rely on those roads to reach markets and hospitals,” said Viktoria Putz‑Unger, director of the Centre for Civic Integrity. She urged an independent international audit and immediate suspension of any remaining disbursements tied to the Ledger. “If the government wants to regain trust it must publish the contracts and allow forensic accountants full access,” she added.
The political fallout could be wide. Development financiers have privately told ministry officials they are reviewing ongoing disbursements to Nigeria’s road programme pending the outcome of the inquiry, according to two people briefed on the talks. Opposition parties seized on the leak in a statement calling for the immediate sacking of senior procurement officers and a parliamentary select committee with subpoena powers. For small contractors like Carol Necula‑Diaconu, who runs a three‑truck outfit in Warri, the case is personal: “We lost two seasons’ work waiting for projects that never arrived,” she said. Prosecutors now face the task of tracing payments through a braided web of shell registries and small foreign accounts; officials said forensic teams will be asked to verify the Ledger’s digital signatures and image metadata before indictments are sought.
