Lateef Sanni Handed N10.69 Billion Of Nigeria Stored Products Research Institute Money To One Businessman’s Family Of Companies

Secrets Reporters

High Chief Dr Kenneth Ifekudu, an Awka businessman and chairman of Diamond Leeds Ltd, has never hidden the spread of his companies. A published profile of the businessman lists Blue Diamond Oil and Gas Ltd, Gold Reef Villa Ltd, Pure Diamond Consult Ltd, Gold Reef Consult Ltd, Gorrion Engineering Ltd and Ken Vic Moore Biz Ventures Nig Limited among his companies, and company filings examined by SecretsReporters place Diamond Leeds itself at No. 1 Kenneth Ifekudu Crescent, Awka, an address that carries his own name. What no publication has recorded is what those companies collected from one federal institute. Official payment records examined by SecretsReporters show that eight companies built on three of the names in that profile, Diamond, Gold Reef and Gorrion, received 63 payments totalling N10,685,375,547.18 from the Nigeria Stored Products Research Institute between 2023 and 2026, all under Professor Lateef Oladimeji Sanni, the Executive Director since 1 May 2023.

The institute paid out N55,616,572,656.94 to contractors across 510 payments in that period, shared among 221 different beneficiaries. The eight companies of the three name families took N10,685,375,547.18 of it, 19.2 percent of everything. The Diamond companies took the largest share: Diamond Leeds Ltd received N2,032,985,286.63 in 10 payments, the single largest total paid to any beneficiary in the records, Blue Diamond Oil and Gas Ltd received N1,237,532,589.39 in 10 payments, and Pure Diamond Consult Ltd received N1,005,825,535.22 in 5 payments, a family total of N4,276,343,411.24 in 25 payments. The Gold Reef companies followed: Gold Reef Consult Ltd received N1,419,730,206.92 in 9 payments, Gold Reef Construction Ltd received N1,176,782,444.27 in 6 payments, and Gold Reef Villa Ltd received N1,087,302,853.61 in 7 payments, a family total of N3,683,815,504.80 in 22 payments. The Gorrion companies took the rest: Gorrion Engineering Limited received N1,633,838,455.41 in 9 payments and Gorrion Consult Ltd received N1,091,378,175.73 in 7 payments, a family total of N2,725,216,631.14 in 16 payments.

The families appear together, in the same batches, on the same days, on the same jobs. On 20 November 2023, in a single run of payments, Diamond Leeds took N193,807,565.61 as part payment for roads on the Adaha Ayam to Ikot Imo axis in Abak, Akwa Ibom State, while Gold Reef Villa took N189,447,721.55 as part payment for the same described road. In the same batch, Blue Diamond took N230,814,395.43 for the Ikot Uko Road, Gold Reef Consult took N184,854,676.50 for roads at Ibiakpan, Gorrion Engineering took N138,744,503.61 for the Urua-Nkoro Dong Udofia Road, and Pure Diamond Consult and Gorrion Consult took N157,512,270.55 and N157,444,255.75 for solar street lights across Ikot Ekpene, Abak and Essien Udim. Final payments on the same jobs followed on 7 and 8 December 2023, N186,207,268.92 to Diamond Leeds, N182,018,399.14 to Gold Reef Villa, N221,762,850.50 to Blue Diamond, N177,605,473.50 to Gold Reef Consult, N151,335,318.75 to Pure Diamond Consult and N133,303,542.67 to Gorrion Engineering. The pattern repeated on 23 September 2024, when Gold Reef Villa took N313,247,602.54, Diamond Leeds took N293,984,342.99, Gorrion Engineering took N223,293,288.90 and Gold Reef Construction took N217,021,144.38 for road rehabilitation and transformer installation in Akwa Ibom North West.

The summit of the pattern came on 11 September 2025, the largest posting day in the institute’s records. Five of the eight family companies were each paid between N435,607,025.07 and N436,554,007.50 that day for the construction of solar powered boreholes in selected communities: Diamond Leeds N436,554,007.50, Gorrion Consult N436,546,964.87, Gorrion Engineering N436,542,736.50, Pure Diamond Consult N436,413,120.00 and Gold Reef Consult N435,607,025.07. A sixth family company, Gold Reef Construction, took N469,500,531.00 the same day for solar dryers, while Gold Reef Consult collected a further N93,445,870.00 for grain supply in Owan, Edo State, and Blue Diamond collected N83,901,345.00 for grains for the less privileged. The eight payments to the families that single day totalled N2,828,511,599.94. No description attached to the borehole payments states a location, a community or a number of boreholes, and the near-identical pricing of five related companies on one undescribed job sits against section 16 of the Public Procurement Act 2007, which requires open competition, transparency and value for money, and against section 38 of the same Act, which governs the evaluation of bids.

The range of work the families absorbed runs far beyond any single trade. Across the records, the Diamond, Gold Reef and Gorrion companies were paid for rural roads, erosion and flood control works, solar street lights, transformer and cable installation, solar powered boreholes, solar dryers, grain distribution in Akwa Ibom and Edo, fertiliser supply in Bauchi South, agricultural equipment in Anambra, tricycles in Sokoto North, mini buses and sewing machines in Imo, and youth empowerment materials in Anambra. On 25 February 2025 alone, Diamond Leeds took N435,115,644.42 for solar street lights in Ozubulu, Anambra State, the largest single payment to any family company in the records, while Blue Diamond collected N86,192,657.14 for tricycles and N78,014,541.86 for mini buses on the same day. On 11 March 2025, Blue Diamond took N93,436,000.00 for grain distribution across five Akwa Ibom local government areas while Gold Reef Villa took N93,436,470.00 for fertiliser in Bauchi South, two sums N470 apart, paid the same day, for different goods in different states. Section 16 of the same Act further requires the exclusion of any bidder carrying a conflict of interest or an unfair competitive advantage, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 binds every agency to spend appropriated funds only on the purposes the National Assembly approved.

The registry trail examined by SecretsReporters runs in the same direction as the payment trail. Company filings show Diamond Leeds Ltd registered as RC 763207 in 2008 and Gorrion Engineering Limited as RC 1528564 in 2018, both active, with Ken Vic Moore Biz Ventures Nig Limited at RC 631534, Blue Diamond Oil and Gas Ltd at RC 618590, Pure Diamond Consult Ltd at RC 1192943 and Gold Reef Consult Ltd at RC 1673255. Gold Reef Consult and Pure Diamond Consult share one registered address, the 6th Floor of the National Merit Award House, Maitama, Abuja. Gold Reef Construction Ltd was incorporated on 20 March 2023, weeks before Professor Sanni assumed office, and was about two and a half years old when it took its N469,500,531.00 dryer payment. Ken Vic Moore, named in the chairman’s profile alongside the family companies, is not counted in the family total. It separately received N1,891,172,322.33 in 9 payments and sat in the same 11 September 2025 borehole band.

The institute these companies fed on is a research body. Its own research, laboratory and storage technology payments across the whole period total N271,490,012.76, which is 0.49 percent of the money it paid out. The three name families alone received about 39 times that sum, under a professor of food science and technology whose own field is post-harvest research. The payment records do not by themselves establish what was delivered on the ground, and they carry no certificate of completion. What they establish is the concentration: 63 payments, N10,685,375,547.18, one fifth of a federal research institute’s contractor spending in three years, flowing to eight companies whose own chairman’s published profile had already named them as one man’s family of companies.

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