NIMASA DG Dayo Mobereola Sank N3.95 Billion Into Office and Vehicle Maintenance in One Year

Secrets Reporters

NIMASA recorded ₦1.56 billion for Nigerian offices, ₦1 billion for one London office and ₦1.39 billion for operational vehicles excluding fuel, figures that tower over ordinary market benchmarks and leave the agency facing a basic question about what Nigerians received for the money.

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) recorded N3,954,360,000 on only three maintenance lines in 2024, an extraordinary bill accumulated in the year Dr Dayo Mobereola became Director-General.

N1,559,760,000 for maintenance of the headquarters, annex and zonal office buildings. Item 19 recorded N1,000,000,000 for maintenance of one London office and N1,394,600,000 for operational vehicles, expressly excluding fuel.

The combined bill averaged about N329.53 million every month. Building maintenance accounted for 39.4 per cent, vehicle maintenance took 35.3 per cent and one London office swallowed 25.3 per cent. These were not salaries, new buildings or new vehicles. They were described simply as maintenance.

N1.56 billion building maintenance implies an enormous property estate

NIMASA recorded N1,559,760,000 for maintaining its headquarters, annex and zonal office buildings. That is about N129.98 million every month merely to keep existing offices in shape.

A common facilities-management yardstick places annual routine maintenance at roughly two to five per cent of a property’s replacement value. Applied to NIMASA’s figure, the agency spent at a level normally associated with maintaining a building estate worth between N31.2 billion and N78 billion.

The same market benchmark also means that a modest office block with a replacement value of N5 billion would ordinarily carry an annual routine-maintenance envelope of about N100 million to N250 million. NIMASA’s N1.56 billion could cover that benchmark for at least six such buildings at the highest rate, or more than fifteen at the lower rate. Yet the expense is presented as one broad line without telling Nigerians whether roofs were replaced, elevators rebuilt, electrical systems renewed or entire floors rehabilitated.

One London office consumed N1 billion

The most startling entry is the N1,000,000,000 recorded for maintenance of NIMASA’s London office. The charge averaged ₦83.33 million every month and consumed more than one quarter of the entire maintenance package.

General London office-market checks put annual service charges around £8 to £15 per square foot. Using an illustrative conversion of N2,000 to one pound, NIMASA’s N1 billion becomes about £500,000. At the upper market rate of £15 per square foot, that amount could pay a full year’s service charge on about 33,333 square feet of office space. At £8 per square foot, it could cover roughly 62,500 square feet which is the scale of a substantial multi-floor corporate occupation, not an unexplained single-office maintenance line.

Even this comparison is generous by SecretsReporters findings because service charges commonly cover shared services across a commercial building. NIMASA has not stated the size of its London premises, whether the agency owns or rents it, or whether the N1 billion paid for ordinary upkeep, a complete refurbishment or several unrelated jobs.

N1.39 billion vehicle bill came before fuel

NIMASA then recorded N1,394,600,000 for maintaining operational vehicles, excluding fuel. That was about N116.22 million every month before one litre of petrol or diesel entered any tank.

A TotalEnergies Nigeria online retail package for synthetic oil, an oil filter and labour is priced at N86,000. At that benchmark, NIMASA’s vehicle-maintenance bill could purchase about 16,216 complete oil-service packages. Even if every vehicle were serviced four times in the year, the money would be enough for more than 4,050 vehicles.

The comparison remains alarming even at the premium end. A generous annual maintenance allowance of N1.5 million for a high-end imported vehicle would cover about 929 vehicles for an entire year. At N600,000 per vehicle, the sum would maintain about 2,324 vehicles. NIMASA has not disclosed a fleet anywhere near those numbers in the expense entry, nor does the line show how much went to routine servicing, tyres, accident repairs, engines, gearboxes or imported parts.

The figure excludes fuel, meaning the N1.39 billion cannot be defended as the cost of moving vessels, patrol teams or officials around the country. It was a repair-and-upkeep bill. Without a vehicle-by-vehicle account, the amount stands as one of the clearest examples of how a routine operational need can become a billion-naira drain.

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