The management of BUA Group has explained how its $500 million integrated investment cluster involving flour, pasta, and sugar processing facilities and 4,000 jobs were saved by former President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention in view of an alleged disregard by a former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman.
This disclosure was made in BUA’s press release titled “FLOUTING CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS, DEFYING COURT ORDERS, AND DISREGARDING ARBITRATION: THE FACTS BEHIND HADIZA BALA USMAN’S ABUSE OF OFFICE AS NPA MD,” dated May 31, 2025.
The rebuttal followed a statement from Usman’s office accusing BUA Group chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu, of flaunting his access to former President Muhammadu Buhari by allegedly misinforming the former president into reversing NPA’s decision on BUA’s contract.
The allegations and counter-allegations relate to BUA’s long lease agreement in 2006 with the NPA to rehabilitate and operate Terminal B at Rivers Port in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
This reversal, according to Usman’s office, resulted in a directive that contradicted the existing contract and undermined the country’s interests.
“On Thursday, 29 May, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, chairman of the BUA Group, wrote an article riddled with falsehoods by accusing an unnamed former Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) of acting against the interest of his business organisation.
‘He claimed in his article that ‘we woke up to a letter stating that the concession had been revoked. There was no prior warning, no issue, no conflict….’ This is a blatant lie. Not only did the BUA Group receive numerous notifications and warnings about its negligence of contractual responsibilities; some of these warnings preceded my tenure as managing director,” Usman’s office stated.
The statement added that it is curious that the chairman of BUA Group has continued to push this alleged false narrative aimed at distracting Nigerians from seeing his company’s flagrant disregard of the binding contractual agreement.
The company and its chairman were urged to refrain from alleged cheap blackmail and commit to making the company a responsible corporate body that will make the country proud.
Responding to the allegations, BUA Group stressed that former President Buhari was not misinformed but acted on facts and laws regarding the organization’s contracts with NPA and the ports.
“Ms. Usman’s claim that former President Muhammadu Buhari was ‘misinformed’ when he reversed her actions is false, disrespectful, and disingenuous,” the group added.
“We never saw her at any of them. Nevertheless, the AGF proceeded to undertake a comprehensive review of the contract, the litigation, the arbitration clause, and all correspondence and actions by BUA and NPA,” the group stated.
“It was on this basis that President Buhari ordered the reversal of her unlawful actions.
“His intervention preserved the sanctity of the contract, saved over 4,000 jobs, and BUA’s $500 million integrated investment cluster involving flour, pasta, and sugar processing facilities, all dependent on terminal access,” the statement partly reads.
“The contract was awarded to TREVI, and BUA has since invested over $65 million—entirely self-funded and with no recourse to public funds or subsidies,” the statement partly reads.
Naijaonpoint recalls that BUA and Usman’s leadership of the NPA had been at loggerheads dating back to 2019.
Naijaonpoint recalls that BUA and Usman’s leadership of the NPA had been at loggerheads dating back to 2019.
However, the General Manager of BUA Ports and Terminals Limited, Mohammed Ibrahim, said the withdrawal of the license by the Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, was against the requirements of global judicial/dispute resolution and undermined the NPA concession agreements.