Correctional Service gave no response to six audit queries of N1.50bn, among them two Hilux pick-ups priced at N99.06m in Ilesha prison contracts

The Auditor-General for the Federation found two Toyota Hilux pick-ups inside the contracts for the new custodial centre at Ilesha, Osun State. They were written into the bills of quantities as "project vehicles", one at N49,560,000.00 and one at N49,500,000.00, in two contracts let by the Nigerian Correctional Service: a reinforced concrete perimeter fence for N698,363,591.17, awarded on 4 October 2022, and an administrative block for N729,185,851.51, awarded on 22 February 2023. "There was no evidence that the project vehicles were recovered from the contractor after the completion of the project," the auditors wrote. Under "Management's Response" the report prints two words: "No response." It prints the same two words under each of the six queries it raises at the service, which together come to N1,500,160,154.10.

The queries are in Volume II of the Auditor-General's Annual Report on Non-compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in Ministries, Departments and Agencies for the year ended 31 December 2024, which the Auditor-General, Shaakaa Kanyitor Chira, sent to the Clerk to the National Assembly with a letter dated 17 July 2026. The Correctional Service section, on pages 639 to 645, covers a different year from the report's title: it says the observations were made "for the period 1st January to 31st December, 2023". The six queries are N780,063,494.55 for unsubstantiated items in contract bills, N54,629,199.10 of retention fees paid without the Auditor-General's certificate, N99,060,000.00 for the two vehicles, N5,000,000.00 for land, N529,454,686.30 of contracts awarded before the service's tenders board approved them, and N31,952,774.15 for furniture for the Controller-General's private residence.

The vehicle query describes each pick-up in detail: a "Toyota Hilux 4WD DC AC P S SMT premium package 4 wheel drive 2.7 liter petrol engine, double cabin", with air conditioning, power steering, side steps and other fittings. Together the two vehicles are 6.94 per cent of the two contracts' combined value of N1,427,549,442.68. The auditors cite the Financial Regulations' rules on the safety of government assets and on vehicle registers and log books, and recommend that the Controller-General account to the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly for N99,060,000.00, "being amount of project vehicles embedded in the BOQ of the contracts without recovery from the contractor after completion of the projects", and recover and remit the sum to the Treasury. The query does not name the contractors, say which vehicle sat in which contract, say whether either vehicle was delivered, or give a date on which the work was completed.

The Ilesha centre has a line in each of the last three Appropriation Acts. Under the code ERGP14176282, "Construction of 4Nos. 3000 capacity maximum security custodial centres in Ilesha, Osun State, Jos, Plateau State, Gombe, Gombe State and Umuahia, Abia State" is marked "ongoing" each year, with N1,858,751,813 in the 2024 Act (page 272), N759,349,564 in 2025 (page 285) and N531,544,695 in 2026 (page 296). That is N3,149,646,072 over three years for four centres. The audit's "3,000 Capacity Custodian Centre, MSCC Ilesha" matches the project the Acts name, but the Acts give one figure for all four sites and do not list contracts, so they do not show whether the fence and the administrative block were paid from this line, or in which year. The two Ilesha contracts alone, N1,427,549,442.68, are N136,655,183.68 more than the 2025 and 2026 Acts together give all four centres (N1,290,894,259). They were awarded in 2022 and 2023, and Vero Record did not examine the Acts for those years.

The fall in the 2026 figure is not a judgment on Ilesha. All ten of the service's project lines that carry the same code in the 2025 and 2026 Acts appear in 2026 at exactly 70 per cent of their 2025 amounts, rounded to the naira: N759,349,564 became N531,544,695 for the four centres, and N2,280,609,699 became N1,596,426,789 for the service's own vehicle line, "pick-up vans, Mini Maria, Green Maria, ambulance, jeep" and others. A N1,000,000,000 line for "provision of various infrastructure" reappears under a new code at N700,000,000, and one new line gives N700,000,000 for solar mini-grids at the Kirikiri and Ikoyi centres in Lagos. Vanguard reported in December 2025 that a Budget Ministry circular told agencies to carry 70 per cent of their 2025 capital budgets into 2026. The 2026 Act gives the service N200,546,197,163 in all: N138,295,089,555 for personnel, N51,402,376,123 for overheads and N10,848,731,485 for capital.

The largest query, N780,063,494.55, is 52.0 per cent of the six. The auditors say the service included sums for "Project Administration, Contingency and preliminaries, etc." in the Bills of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation for contracts awarded during the year, and that a "Sample from the BEME of one hundred and thirteen (113) contracts" showed N780,063,494.55 provided for under those heads that "could not be accounted for". They add: "There was no evidence of how the sum in (ii) above, paid to the Contractors, was utilized." The report does not give the value of the 113 contracts, list them, or say what share of their cost the N780,063,494.55 represents. Nor does it say that putting such provisions in a bill is itself against the rules; as worded, its objection is that the auditors saw no evidence of how the money was used.

The furniture query is for N31,952,774.15. The auditors say that sum "was paid to two (2) companies for the procurement of furniture for the private residence of the Controller-General of the Service during the period under review", and that it was "an irregular expenditure charge against public funds since the consolidated emolument of the Controller-General already included all his entitlements". They cite a 2004 establishment circular requiring agencies that monetise fringe benefits to clear the package with the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission. The report does not name the officer. The year audited ended before the present Controller-General, Sylvester Nwakuche, was nominated: a State House statement of 19 October 2026 says President Tinubu nominated him in December 2024 and the Senate confirmed him in March 2025.

The remaining queries turn on approvals and paperwork. The service paid N54,629,199.10 of retention fees to contractors without the defect clearance certificate that a Treasury circular of 8 July 2019 says the Auditor-General must issue first, and the auditors say the requests and approvals were "not provided despite audit request". Contracts worth N529,454,686.30 were "within the approval threshold of the Correctional Service's Parastatal Tenders Board", the report says, but were awarded "before the approval" of that board. The land query does not agree with itself. Its heading reads "Payment for land without evidence of ownership", but the finding says the N5,000,000.00 "was provided in the Bill of Quantities (BOQ) for the purchase of land for the construction of a Sustainable Water Supply", with no certificate or right of occupancy shown and the land not produced for review. A provision in a bill is not a payment, and the report does not say whether the money was paid.

The Auditor's Evaluation under each of the six queries reads: "Since the Management failed to respond to the issue raised, the findings remain valid until the Management implements the recommendations." Those words record what the auditors had received when the report was finalised; they do not show whether the service answered later, and Vero Record found no public statement from the service on these queries. Each recommendation asks the Controller-General to account to the Public Accounts Committees for the sum, to "recover and remit" it to the Treasury and to send evidence of remittance, which is the report's standard form; it is for the committees to decide whether any explanation is accepted.

Some of the record is on the service's side. An audit query is not a finding of wrongdoing, and nothing in the documents read for this report establishes a crime by anyone. Most of the six queries rest on what the auditors did not see: evidence of use, approvals, certificates, title documents, the return of vehicles. None says that money was stolen. The vehicle query does not challenge the practice of writing project vehicles into a construction contract, only the absence of proof that they came back. The tenders query says the contracts were within the threshold of the board that should have approved them, which places the fault in timing rather than authority. And the year under audit, 2023, ended a year before the service's present Controller-General was nominated.

Set side by side, the two records show a project the Appropriation Acts still call "ongoing" in 2026, with N3,149,646,072 voted for it and three other centres since 2024, and an audit that found two Ilesha contracts worth N1,427,549,442.68 carrying N99,060,000.00 of vehicles whose return the service could not show. They show N1,500,160,154.10 of queries in all and no answer printed to any of them. They do not show that any vehicle is missing, that any money was lost, or how much of the Acts' money reached Ilesha.

What this rests on

Office of the Auditor-General for the Federation, Annual Report on Non-compliance/Internal Control Weaknesses in MDAs for the year ended 31 December 2024: transmittal letter AuGF/AR.2024/01 dated 17 July 2026 (Vol. I, p.ii), contents (Vol. II, pp.ii to iii) and Nigerian Correctional Service, Abuja, Issues 1 to 6 (Vol. II, pp.639 to 645, PDF pp.204 to 210), period 1 January to 31 December 2023. The report is scanned; every quoted passage and figure was read on the rendered page images. 2024 Appropriation Act (scanned, read as images): Federal Ministry of Interior summary, p.268, and Nigeria Correctional Service capital totals and project list, p.272. 2025 Appropriation Act as passed: summary p.280, service pp.284 to 285. 2026 Appropriation Act: summary p.291, service pp.295 to 296. Page extracts of all are saved with this report. On the service's pages of all three Acts the running header reads "Ministry of Interior - HQTRS"; the summary tables (pp.268, 280 and 291) confirm the totals belong to code 0124002001, Nigeria Correctional Service. Arithmetic re-done: queries N780,063,494.55 + N54,629,199.10 + N99,060,000.00 + N5,000,000.00 + N529,454,686.30 + N31,952,774.15 = N1,500,160,154.10; N780,063,494.55 / N1,500,160,154.10 = 52.0%. Vehicles N49,560,000.00 + N49,500,000.00 = N99,060,000.00, the query's heading. Ilesha contracts N698,363,591.17 + N729,185,851.51 = N1,427,549,442.68; N99,060,000.00 / N1,427,549,442.68 = 6.94%. Line ERGP14176282: N1,858,751,813 (2024) + N759,349,564 (2025) + N531,544,695 (2026) = N3,149,646,072; N759,349,564 + N531,544,695 = N1,290,894,259; N1,427,549,442.68 - N1,290,894,259 = N136,655,183.68. 4 October 2022 to 22 February 2023 = 141 days. 2026: N138,295,089,555 + N51,402,376,123 + N10,848,731,485 = N200,546,197,163; the 12 project lines (531,544,695 + 619,593,432 + 5,063,596,810 + 1,596,426,789 + 861,933,854 + 4,313,308 + 394,373,541 + 85,037,435 + 4,313,308 + 700,000,000 + 287,598,313 + 700,000,000) = N10,848,731,485, the printed capital total. 2025: N124,307,030,387 + N45,820,341,928 + N14,498,187,835 = N184,625,560,150; the 11 project lines add to N14,498,187,835. 2024: N75,850,529,958 + N30,862,080,626 + N14,260,827,762 = N120,973,438,346; the 12 project lines add to N14,260,827,762. 70 per cent check, 2025 to 2026, same code: 759,349,564 x 0.7 = 531,544,695; 885,133,474 x 0.7 = 619,593,432; 7,233,709,729 x 0.7 = 5,063,596,810; 2,280,609,699 x 0.7 = 1,596,426,789; 1,231,334,077 x 0.7 = 861,933,854; 6,161,868 x 0.7 = 4,313,308 (two lines); 563,390,773 x 0.7 = 394,373,541; 121,482,050 x 0.7 = 85,037,435; 410,854,733 x 0.7 = 287,598,313 (all rounded to the naira); 1,000,000,000 x 0.7 = 700,000,000 under a new code. Capital overall: N10,848,731,485 / N14,498,187,835 = 74.8%, because of the new N700,000,000 solar line. Where the audit text does not agree with itself: Issue 4's heading says "Payment for land" but its finding and recommendation describe N5,000,000.00 "provided" in a bill of quantities; Issue 3's finding speaks of "the completion of the project" in the singular for two contracts, and its recommendation of "the projects"; the report is titled for 2024 but the service's section covers 2023. The heading figure and the recommendation figure agree in all six queries.

What this does not establish

Whether the two Hilux pick-ups were delivered, used or handed over, and where they are now. Who the contractors are, how much has been paid on the two Ilesha contracts, and whether the fence and the administrative block are finished; the report implies completion but gives no date. Which appropriation, and which year, paid for the Ilesha contracts; the Acts give one line for four centres and the 2022 and 2023 Acts were not examined. What was actually released against line ERGP14176282 in any year. The value and identity of the 113 contracts in Issue 1. Whether the N5,000,000.00 for land was paid. Who held the post of Controller-General when the furniture was bought; the report does not name the officer. Whether the service replied to the auditors after the report was finalised, and whether the Public Accounts Committees have considered these queries. The service and the contractors were not contacted for this report; the service's position is given as the report prints it. Nothing in the documents establishes wrongdoing by any person or company.