ERHC Energy Inc (ERHE)

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Whose Front is Emeka Offor?

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Written by Jonathan Elendu and Sowore Omoyele

If he were American or European, he would be on the Forbes list of the 400 richest people in the world. He estimates his net worth at three billion dollars ($3 billion), although a recent report obtained by Elendureports.com, puts his net worth at about six billion dollars ($6 billion). This former “Julius Berger truck driver” claims to have been a former petty contractor until fortune smiled at him. He reportedly was given a nineteen million naira contract in 1983, and thus opened the gates to unimaginable wealth.

According to documents obtained by Elendureports.com, business tycoon Emeka Offor is being investigated by a branch of the American government. Another business mogul, Wahab Folawiyo, may also be under investigation. What do these two men have in common besides stupendous wealth? They are both friends of Pres. Olusegun Obasanjo. And they are both oil men.

Emeka Offor is one of the major financiers of the President’s party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In the last election cycle, he donated two hundred million naira to the Obasanjo re-election campaign. He is also reputed to have sponsored the former Governor Mbadinuju of Anambra State, some members of the National Assembly and Anambra State House of Assembly for elections in 1999. He allegedly parted ways with Gov. Mbadinuju because the Governor refused him unimpeded access to the State’s Treasury. This parting with Offor led to Mbadinuju losing the nomination of his party for re-election in 2003.

Offor owns a chain of companies including, Chrome Oil Services, African Express Bank (Afex Bank), Chrome Radio Station, Chrome Air, and Environmental Remediation Holding Company (ERHC). Chrome Air is on retainer with the Central Bank of Nigeria. Offor also sits on the board of several companies, including Niger Insurance.

Documents obtained by Elendureports.com indicate that the bulk of Offor’s business is with the Nigerian Government. These documents show that Emeka Offor may have made most of his wealth from inflated contracts and speculate that he may be laundering money for some highly-placed government officials. Existing records show that Offor was a front for the late Gen. Sanni Abacha. His first major government contracts came from the Abacha regime.

Offor’s company, Chrome Oil Services, handled the Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM) on two federal government owned refineries in Port Harcourt. Claims have been made that Nigeria may have been fleeced of at least one hundred million U.S. dollars by Chrome Oil Services. Even with all the money invested in the Turn-Around Maintenance, the two refineries have yet to perform at optimal levels. On November 23, 2004, Offor appeared before the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (downstream sector) to explain the non-completion of the TAM. He was rude and disrespectful to the committee members. They have yet to summon him since then.

The documents in our possession accuse Offor of being involved in “about 20 other serious cases of corruption, influence peddling, abuse of office, involvement in illegal acts and cover-ups, harassment and intimidation of political and business opponents, procuring law enforcement agents to act unlawfully, infringement of transparency rules and regulations of government.”

A document prepared by one of the Nigerian security agencies credits Emeka Offor, his business partner, Gidado Idris, and some others as being the people who destroyed the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) through their business practices. Their imprints are also found on the struggling National Fertilizer Company of Nigeria (NAFCON), as well as Eleme Petro-Chemical Company.

There are allegations that Offor used his closeness to Vice-President Atiku to ‘corner’ the multi-billion dollar Yola/Bauchi NEPA transmission line. He has already been paid a significant part of the contract fees as mobilization fees. Offor, in a published report, denied Atiku’s involvement in the deal. Sources at the Vice-President’s office, who spoke to Elendureports.com, told us that Atiku and Offor were not, and have never been, close friends, “Although the Vice-President introduced Offor to the President, Offor is closer to the President than Atiku. In fact I can tell you that Offor has not been close to the Vice-President since 2001, except for during the campaigns when the entire people in the VP’s campaign entourage spent a night at Offor’s country home.” The Vice-President denied having any business dealings with Offor. According to the source, “The Vice-President swore that he has never done any oil business since becoming the Vice-President.”

The said documents in Elendureports.com’s possession state that Emeka Offor and Vice President Atiku were also implicated in a recent revelation about a mysterious Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) signature fee deposit from the sale of OPL 245. Malabu Oil and Gas, a Dan Etete company, were the original owners of OPL 245, but it was later revoked by the Obasanjo Government, and later sold to SPDC. The entire OPL 245 transaction is tainted by controversy as Malabu and Etete sued the Obasanjo Government in a U.S. court for two-and-a-half billion dollars ($2.5 billion). Some interest accruing from the signature fee paid by SPDC is said to have been paid to some U.S. Congressional contacts. Emeka Offor is said to have recapitalized his bank, the Apex bank, with some of the money.

Sources also told Elendureports.com that Offor is very close to the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) chief, Jackson Gaius-Obaseki. Sources told us that Offor and the Vice-President met last at the President’s office. The Vice-President had gone to present documents to the President concerning Jackson Gaius-Obaseki. The said documents show that Obaseki had salted away about six hundred million dollars ($600 million) in various bank accounts. This revelation led to the President’s firing of Obaseki. However, the President refused to release the file with the documents that show the details of Obaseki’s bank accounts.

The reason the U.S. Government is investigating Offor is for a company he acquired—the Environmental Remediation Holding Corporation (ERHC); it was registered in 1986 by some Americans in Colorado. Chrome Energy, LLC (registered in Houston, TX) owns about 51.1% of ERHC. There are many allegations swirling around Offor’s involvement with this company. There have been claims by some foreign organizations that Offor’s shares in this company were donated to him as a way of enticing Nigeria into a deal with Sao Tome and Principe. Another report speculates that Offor’s shares may actually belong to the Vice-President. As stated earlier, the Vice-President denies any business involvement with Offor.

Another allegation is that the Federal Government of Nigeria arm-twisted the original owners of ERHC and Sao Tome into giving Offor the controlling shares in the company. One thing is certain: Offor’s ownership of ERHC makes him the number one player in the emerging oil industry of Sao Tome and Principe. The Offor-ERHC-Obasanjo deal was said to have incensed U.S. oil giant, ExxonMobil, as they were still carrying out seismic studies in Sao Tome.

According to documents in Elendureports.com’s possession, ERHC’s “sole asset is an oil and gas exploration concession in Sao Tome received pursuant to an agreement which became effective in July 2002. The company's focus is to exploit its only asset. The agreement with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome & Principe concerns oil and gas exploration in Sao Tome, an island nation located in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of central West Africa, as well as in a joint development zone between Sao Tome and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The agreement was embodied in a consent award issued by the arbitrator as a result of the satisfaction of several conditions, including the ratification of a treaty between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome & Principe.”

The company’s statement of accounts indicates that until 2003, ERHC did not have any assets, but had a debt portfolio in the millions of dollars. How did a company that is in debt up to the tune of about thirty million dollars ($30 million) and with one staff member acquire a lucrative oil deal in Sao Tome and Principe? Why did Offor buy this company and end up paying more than seventy-five percent of the company’s debts? The company’s statement of accounts for the year ended 2004 indicate that ERHC lost about four million dollars ($4,000,000.00) during the accounting period. Why did the Federal Government of Nigeria not use the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for this deal?

Perhaps the information excerpted from the documents in our possession will shed some light on this matter, “About 4 billion barrels of crude are believed to lie beneath those waters. Without a drilling rig to its name, ERHC could reap hundreds of millions of dollars from its holdings. The company was formed and run by a number of minor U.S players and was able to pay the Sao Tomeans a small sum for the contract. The contract ran into trouble when it was realized that these prospective oil leases would have no value until an international treaty was made between Nigeria and Sao Tome, delineating the territorial boundaries between the two countries. A visit to Sao Tome by the American head of the company proved useless. The U.S. owners were persuaded by Offor that he could arrange that Nigeria set out such a treaty, using his friends Obasanjo and Atiku. The company agreed to sell its shares to Offor, while retaining a number of shares in their own name. They didn’t so much sell the shares as donated them in exchange for Offor agreeing to be liable for the debt. In mid-2001 Offor acquitted a 75% stake in EHRC. A few weeks later the Government of Nigeria and the Government of Sao Tome signed a treaty delineating their borders. Now the oil leases (which promised a 5% of the revenue stream to Chrome) now had a putative value.

This ability to start to sell the oil leases attracted other players. Obasanjo was pushing two companies for the Joint Development Zone (JDZ). These were the Nigerian branch of Norwegian PGS, headed by Otunba Onabanjo (father-in-law of Obasanjo’s second son) and Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum, run by Wahab Folawiyo (close friend of Obasanjo). Atiku was happy with Chrome as it was widely believed that he actually owned the Chrome shares and Offor was his nominee.”

Howard F. Jeter, a former ambassador, retired U.S. State Department official and friend of Pres. Obasanjo, is on the board of ERHC. Jeter also serves as an executive of Goodworks International, LLC, a lobbying firm owned by Amb. Andrew Young and Carlton Masters. Goodworks International lobbies the American Government on behalf of Nigeria.

The last coup d’etat in Sao Tome was both a diplomatic and business opportunity for President Obasanjo. The President intervened and brokered a peace deal between the coupists and the ousted Sao Tomean President. There are reports that the ousted President was accompanied from Libreville by two plane loads of military men to retake power in Sao Tome. This singular act re-established Pres. Obasanjo and Nigeria as indispensable in Sao Tome’s march to petro-wealth. Emeka Offor is reputed to have sponsored Pres. Meneze’s for the Sao Tomean presidential election in 2001.

Elendureports.com contacted ERHC at their Texas office. We were informed by a receptionist, who gave her name as Jane, that Emeka Offor did not maintain an office there. She refused to give us information as to how to contact Emeka Offor. She refused to answer more questions and abruptly hung up the phone. The Securities and Exchange Commission refused to confirm or deny that ERHC is under investigation.

Emeka Offor’s deals have astounded many investigators as he seems to operate in almost all of Nigeria’s economic nerve centers. It is widely believed that Chris Uba, the self-acclaimed political godfather of Anambra State, is playing from Offor’s playbook. Their influence on the Obasanjo Administration makes them members of the elite class of ‘sacred cows’ in Nigeria today.

Dated 12/1/2005
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php/content/view/2041/46/