If there is one man that knows how to play his card very well in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, it is no other person than Emeka Offor. He has endeared himself to every government that came into power, from the military government to the democratic government, and he has been able win himself contracts worth trillions of naira, even from the projects where he has done nothing. But alas, it seems Emeka Offor’s charm has hit the rock in the oil industry being restructured by the indefatigable Ibe Kachikwu.
The report reaching TheCapital is that the office of the controversial billionaire oil magnate, The Chrome group, located at No 22 Lobito Crescent, Wuse II, Abuja, was seen sealed off yesterday by the men of anti-graft agency. According to an eyewitness who spoke exclusively to TheCapital, The Chrome Group headquarter was barricaded by some security personnel, barring any attempt to gain entrance into the building.
It is worthy of note that Emeka Offor is a close associate of former President Goodluck Jonathan and was allegedly involved in a $3 billion oil contract scandal. A few days before the end of President Jonathan’s tenure, he and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mohammed Bello Adoke, was reported to have connived to award more than $3 billion in crude oil to a Chinese oil company linked to the controversial businessman, Emeka Offor.
In an interview granted last years by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, he revealed that since 1999, Emeka Offor’s company was awarded the contract worth billions of naira to maintain refineries in the country when he, Emeka Offor, was not an expert in.
Offor founded a firm known then as Anchoff Strongholds (now The Chrome Group) which was a clearing agent for the Warri Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals Company (WPRC) and later became its supplier. In 1993, the company became the first African company to the awarded the task to carry out a turn-around maintenance (TAM) on the 125,000 barrels per day WRPC, an event that shook the global oil industry. But at the end, it was discovered that there was not maintenance carried out.
A probe led by Aret Adams, regarded as the best group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) ever, was instituted. The report of the probe indicted Anchoff Strongholds and was blacklisted from doing business with the NNPC. But Emeka Offor founded a new company called The Chrome Group and the company again was awarded the contract to maintain the Port Harcourt refineries by the administration of Gen Sani Abacha.
