EFCC Opens Trials Of Warri, PH Refinery Ex-Bosses
Two men who once ran Nigeria’s most strategic petroleum plants are heading to the dock this week, as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission opens formal trials tied to the alleged diversion of funds set aside to revive the country’s ailing refineries.
The former Managing Director of the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Ltd, Jimoh Olasunkanmi Yisawu, is scheduled for arraignment on Friday, while the former helmsman of the Port Harcourt Refining Company Ltd, Ahmed Adamu Dikko, is due before the court on Wednesday. Court records show both matters are being handled by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, following charges the commission filed on 22 June.
Yisawu is answering to eight counts, Dikko to twelve. Between them, the figures named in the charge sheets run into hundreds of thousands of dollars and more than a billion naira, spanning transactions the commission traces back to 2022. Both men are presumed innocent until the court rules otherwise.
According to the charges, Yisawu is accused of indirectly converting an aggregate of $789,950 through one Samaila Bala between October 2023 and May 2025, and a further $122,600 through Rasheed Yusuf of Rasheedat Anike Global Ventures between February 2024 and March 2025. The commission alleges the payments were made in cash, outside the banking system, and did not form part of his lawful earnings as a public officer. One count reads that the sums “constituted proceeds of unlawful activity.”
The prosecution also points to older transactions. It alleges Yisawu retained N25.56m from JKpeez Impex Co., a contractor linked to an NNPC subsidiary, moved N65.86m to Cordros Securities Limited to buy treasury bills in his own name, and held on to N15m and N3m paid through accounts by parties acting for Ebenco Global Link Limited, described as an NNPC contractor.
Dikko’s file is heavier. The commission alleges he paid the naira equivalent of N218.375m in cash for a property at Plot 558, Abubakar Umar Street, Katampe Extension, Abuja, in February 2024 without routing the money through a bank. Other counts accuse him of retaining N100m and N90m from Ebenco Global Link Limited, disguising the origin of N90m through an account said to belong to Aisha Ahmed Dikko, and concealing N328.71m paid by OMSA Integrated Services Limited from dealings involving NNPC’s allocation of Vacuum Gas Oil for export. He is further accused of converting $77,080 through Ibrahim Isa Yaro and taking N20m through a GTBank account operated by his son. The alleged offences fall under the Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011, as amended.
The trials sit within a far larger inquiry. The EFCC’s probe centres on turnaround maintenance contracts reportedly worth about $2.79bn awarded between 2021 and 2023 for the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna plants, with roughly $1.56bn tied to Port Harcourt, $492.3m to Warri and $740.7m to Kaduna. The commission has said it recovered over N9.4bn, $21.2m and several landed properties in the course of the investigation.
The backdrop is a familiar national frustration. Nigeria’s four state refineries carry a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day, yet have delivered little for the enormous sums sunk into them over successive administrations. That failure has pushed the country to lean heavily on imported fuel and, more recently, on the 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote refinery in Lagos, which has reshaped the downstream market since it began production. The turnaround programme was meant to restore public confidence in the state plants. These trials will test how much of the money meant for that revival actually reached the job.