A petition now before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a copy of which was made available to Apples Bite International Magazine, accuses Senator Solomon Adeola, popularly known as Yayi, of running one of the most audacious budget padding schemes ever alleged against a Nigerian lawmaker. The document, seen by this newspaper, urges the anti-graft agency to investigate the Ogun West senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, over claims that Yayi single-handedly cornered more than ₦1.8 trillion in national budget allocations between 2023 and 2026, far beyond the roughly ₦2 billion Zonal Intervention Project envelope legally permitted to any one senator.
According to the petition sighted by Apples Bite, the scheme worked by hijacking budget lines belonging to federal agencies that have nothing to do with roads, empowerment schemes or infrastructure. Institutions such as the Nigeria Institute of Oceanography and Marine Research, the National Horticultural Research Institute, Sheda Science and Technology Complex and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria are alleged to have been used by Yayi as cover to fund township roads, tricycle distribution and vague “empowerment” programmes that fall outside their statutory mandates. The petitioners argue this tactic was deliberate, designed to bury questionable spending inside agencies where nobody would think to look.
The document, which this magazine has reviewed in detail, lists allocations running into tens of billions of naira spread across at least eighteen MDAs between 2023 and 2026, with some agencies, like the Federal Cooperative College Ibadan, allegedly receiving over ₦57 billion across three fiscal years, funds the petitioners say Yayi’s office cannot fully account for.
Perhaps the most explosive section of the petition, according to the copy obtained by Apples Bite International Magazine, concerns what it describes as a web of front companies allegedly used to launder funds diverted through Yayi’s appropriation influence. The petitioners claim a cluster of firms, including Cinedox Solution Limited, Akgen Solution Ltd, Latdok Integrated Services, Volatix Products Ltd and several others, were all registered within days of one another in December 2019, sharing office addresses in Abuja’s Area 11 and Asokoro districts. At the centre of this alleged network sits one “John Augustine Abah,” a name the petitioners say may belong to someone who does not exist, is deceased, or whose identity has been stolen and used to front billions of naira in public contracts linked to Yayi’s committee, a practice they term corporate identity theft.
The petition, as made available to this magazine, further alleges specific breaches of financial regulations governing how public money should be spent. It claims that over ₦200 billion of Yayi-linked allocations were described in language so vague, phrases like “Provision of Infrastructure in Ogun State”, that auditors would struggle to verify what was actually built or where. It also alleges that roughly ₦50 billion was spent twice over, with identical medical supply allocations for Ogun West appearing in the budgets of two unrelated agencies in the same year. Many projects tied to Yayi’s committee, the document states, were simply tagged “ongoing” indefinitely, a label the petitioners believe was used to dodge competitive bidding rules and keep payments flowing without anything being built.
Apples Bite International Magazine also understands from the petition that Yayi allegedly inserted constituency-style projects into states outside his own senatorial district, including Rivers State, Lagos West and parts of northern Nigeria, without any clear constitutional backing or committee approval to do so.
In their prayers to the EFCC, contained in the document reviewed by this magazine, the petitioners are asking for a full investigation into Yayi, a forensic audit of every MDA named, a separate probe into “John Augustine Abah” and the linked companies, physical on-site inspection of the listed projects, and the freezing of accounts tied to the alleged front companies pending recovery of any diverted funds.
It is important to stress that these remain allegations contained in a petition made available to Apples Bite International Magazine, not findings of guilt by any court or agency. Senator Solomon Adeola has not yet responded publicly to the claims, and neither the EFCC nor the ICPC has confirmed whether an investigation has formally commenced. Apples Bite International Magazine will continue to follow developments and will report any official response from the senator or the anti-corruption agencies as it emerges.
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