Secret documents link family and associates of one of Africa’s most popular pastors, Nigerian televangelist the Rev. Chris Oyakhilome, to an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands.
A business associate of the pastor says some directors in the company held shares on behalf of the pastor’s daughters, Sharon and Charlyn, who are now teenagers.
The company in question is Gmobile Nigeria Limited, an offshore firm incorporated in 2007 in a Caribbean tax haven, the British Virgin Islands, according to a cache of documents reviewed by Premium Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The shareholders listed in the documents include Oyakhilome’s wife, Anita; another pastor in his organization, Thomas Amenkhienan; a business associate, Aigobomian Inegbedion; and another British Virgin Islands’ company, GTMT International Group Limited.
Oyakhilome is founder and president of one of Africa’s largest Pentecostal churches, Believers Loveworld Inc. (aka Christ Embassy), which claims “hundreds of churches … affecting millions of people” in all the continents of the world, with a strong presence in the United Kingdom, South Africa, United States, Canada and Nigeria.
He has also set up satellite broadcast channels in the United Kingdom (LoveWorld TV), South Africa (LoveWorld SAT) and Nigeria (LoveWorld Plus). He hosts a TV show, Atmosphere for Miracles, which airs on television networks in Africa, North America, Australia, Asia and Europe, according to his church’s website.
His church has a series of business interests, the website says, that include vibrant TV and Internet ministries and a publishing outfit that churns out the popular “Rhapsody of Realities” booklet, which is like a second Bible to members of his church.
He is as controversial as he is entrepreneurial. Critics believe he is excessively flamboyant, dressing most of the time in expensive suits, top-of-the-range shirts and ties and exotic shoes.
Some of his critics have alleged that he has staged miracles, bringing forth impotent men, infertile women and people with AIDS who testified they’d been instantly healed. In the wake of controversy over faith-healing practices by Oyakhilome and other pastors, the Nigerian government banned unverified miracles from television in 2004.
His wife, Anita, is also a pastor in the church. She heads the international division of the ministry and is regularly credited with growing the church’s presence around the world.
Until now, there has never been any suggestion that she was involved in financial dealings.
Documents reviewed by ICIJ and Premium Times show that Anita Oyakhihome held 17, 750 of Gmobile’s 50,000 shares, with Amenkhienan owning 1,500 and Inegbedion 750. The fourth shareholder, GTMT International, also a British Virgin Islands’ company, owned by South African investors, held 30,000 shares.
The documents show that some of these individuals held shares in trust for two minors. The records don’t identify the minors, but Inegbedion confirmed that the minors referred to in the documents were the Oyakhilomes’ daughters, quickly adding that there was nothing wrong with that.
“Their parents bought the shares for them because they have rights to own shares,” Mr. Inegbedion said. “A day-old child has a right to own shares in companies.” He declined to say which of Gmobile directors held shares in trust for the girls.
The Oyakhilomes did not respond to emails sent to their personal and church websites.
Setting Up Gmobile
In 2007 Anita Oyakhilome and her partners retained the services of a Dubai-based company, Covenant Management Consultancy (CML), to help it register Gmobile Nigeria Limited in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), a Caribbean chain largely controlled by the United Kingdom. On June 26, 2007, CML in turn approached BVI-based Commonwealth Trust Limited (CTL) to complete the task of setting an offshore company.
After some preliminaries — including name checks and consultation with lawyers — CML’s Susha George wrote to CTL’s Shonia Mathew on July 3 giving her the go-ahead to incorporate Gmobile. In that same two-paragraph message, George informed CTL “two shareholders of this company are minors.” She also asked whether additional documents or procedures were needed for the minors to be owners of the company.
Mathew replied the same day, saying that shares of the company could only be held in trust for the minors.
“Please note if the beneficial owners are minors, then the shares would need to be held in Trust for them until they are of age to act in that capacity,” she wrote, adding that “it may be wise to contact an attorney regarding the formalities of the company.”
Aig Inegbedion…. “Nothing wrong with the Oyakhilome girls holding shares”.
Seven days after Gmobile’s incorporation, company records show, shares were issued to Anita Oyakhilome, Amenkhienan, Inegbedion and GTMT Limited, a BVI company.
Another curious aspect of the company, which became dormant on May 1, 2009, was the makeup of its board of directors. Its first director was not a human being but another offshore company, Covenant Managers Limited, an offshore firm also set up by Dubai-based Covenant Consultancy Limited in July 2005 to offer nominee services to corporations and individuals incorporating companies in the BVI. In the offshore world, nominee directors or shareholders serve as stand-ins that allow the real people behind companies to keep their identities hidden.
As first director, Covenant Managers approved the opening of a bank account in the United Arab Emirates or any other place in the world. It is not known in which bank the account was eventually opened nor whether it was used to move funds.
After Covenant Managers officially resigned, GTMT directors were brought on board together with Anita Oyakhilome, Inegbedion and Amenkhienan as directors. They were Willem Johannes Jacobus Van Der Merwe, Karen Ann Smith and Daniel John William Mills. Reporting by Premium Times determined that Van Der Merwe, Smith and Mills were based in South Africa but we could not ascertain how they came to be associated with the Oyakhilome clan.
Inegbedion said the idea of incorporating Gmobile in a tax haven was suggested by the South Africans, who he said argued that BVI was an ideal neutral ground for the business partnership the Oyakhilomes were forging with GTMT to carry out the business of distributing data compression software in Nigeria.
“We were looking for a neutral ground where both parties could feel safe,” Inegbedion said in a telephone interview. “So we had to go to British Virgin Islands. But it was our partners who handled the registration.”
The only South African partner Premium Times was able to track down, Karen Ann Smith, declined to comment on the formation and businesses of Gmobile. “You are on the wrong trip, guy, as I’m not interested in talking about that business,” Mrs. Smith said on telephone. When she was pressed for details, she said, “You are wasting my time, as I have no interest in speaking to you.”
Fleeting Appearance
Gmobile does not appear to have carried out any business in Nigeria, South Africa or the BVI. Inegbedion and another individual who identified himself as Danny Mills made a fleeting appearance before journalists in Lagos in October 2007, almost four months after Gmobile was registered in the BVI, to say the firm was unveiling a GMobile product which allows users to maximize data storage and make an array of communications and services possible.
Danny Mills was introduced as the international sales director of Gmobile, while Inegbedion was introduced as chief operating officer of an unknown firm, LW GNet Nigeria.
Apparently, nothing has been heard of that product since that event. Today, Inegbedion introduces himself on his Facebook page as managing director of Paradigm Biz Solution Limited, a company the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission also says does not exist in its database.
Remmy Nweke, a well-regarded Lagos-based communications reporter, was among those who covered Gmobile’s press conference at the time. “Well, they came and met the media and said they were rolling out an irresistible product,” Mr. Nweke said via telephone. “But that was the last we heard of them. They simply disappeared.”
Inegbedion said Gmobile was unable to roll out the product because the company’s partners in South Africa failed to deliver after his team, led by Anita Oyakhilome, paid $1.8 million for a distribution license.
To all appearances, Gmobile was simply a failed business venture. But other companies incorporated in tax havens such as the BVI have become known for involvement with illegal activities, including money laundering and tax evasion.
Taking advantage of the loose laws in several jurisdictions, offshore companies are easy to form in tax havens and owners can remain anonymous while using nominee directors as fronts and deploying the corporations to hide ill-gotten assets, launder funds, dodge litigation or evade taxes. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, for example, was convicted of stealing public funds while he was governor of the oil-rich Nigerian state of Bayelsa. The state recovered more than 17 million British pounds from him, including assets he held through Solomon and Peters Limited (a company registered in the BVI) and Santolina Investment Corp. (a company incorporated in the Seychelles). Last month, he received a presidential pardon. Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has also accused another ex-governor, Abubakar Audu, of using two offshore companies in Bermuda (another tax haven) to hide ill-gotten assets. Audu denies the allegations.
Dealing with a questionable firm
The BVI Financial Services Commission found CTL, the offshore services firm that helped the Oyakhilomes to incorporate Gmobile, to be in repeated violation of the BVI’s anti-money laundering law between 2003 and 2008.
Thomas Ward, a co-founder of CTL who has worked as a consultant to the firm since it was sold to the new owners in 2009, said the company worked hard to make sure it didn’t take on shady clients.
“We believe we chose our clients carefully and we believe they honoured their agreements with us,” he said. But at times CTL’s staff was “either deceived or previously honest customers changed.”
By Musikilu Mojeed(Culled From Premium Times)
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Former Anambra State governor and presidential candidate Peter Obi has disagreed with Atiku Abubakar’s proposal to restore Nigeria’s fuel subsidy if elected president in 2027.
Speaking on Monday at the Nigerian Bar Association conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Obi argued that removing the subsidy was necessary but faulted the Federal Government for failing to properly manage the resources generated from its removal.
Atiku, who supported the removal of fuel subsidy during the 2023 presidential election, has since indicated that he would reconsider the policy and restore the subsidy if he wins the 2027 election.
Obi, however, maintained that reversing the policy would not address the underlying problems. According to him, the major failure has been the poor management of the funds saved after the subsidy was removed.
He said the government should have accompanied the policy with measures designed to reduce the hardship faced by Nigerians and should have channelled the resulting savings into productive areas of the economy.
“What we should have done is that when we removed it, we should have given the people alternative usage for the subsidy,” Obi said.
He further alleged that the funds recovered from subsidy removal had not been adequately accounted for, claiming that the resources were being “mismanaged and stolen.”
Obi said he had advocated a more structured approach to subsidy removal before the 2023 election, arguing that the savings should have been deliberately invested in areas capable of improving the lives of Nigerians and strengthening the economy.
“Go to my manifesto, I said it before, I said I will do it in an organised manner and whatever we recover would be invested appropriately,” he said.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of petrol subsidy during his inauguration on May 29, 2023. The decision led to a significant increase in petrol prices and intensified concerns over inflation and the rising cost of living.
While the Federal Government has defended the policy as necessary to reduce pressure on public finances and redirect government resources, the implementation of the reform and the management of the resulting savings remain contentious issues.
With the 2027 election approaching, the contrasting positions of Obi and Atiku have added fuel subsidy to the growing debate over how Nigeria should manage its economy, protect vulnerable citizens and use public resources more effectively.
News
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has warned the 31 companies that emerged successful in the 2025 oil and gas licensing round to pay their required signature bonuses within the statutory timeframe or risk losing their provisional awards.
The warning comes one month after the commission conducted the commercial bid conference in Abuja, where the successful bidders were announced for 37 oil and gas blocks.
In a notice issued on Sunday, the NUPRC said the compliance process had commenced following the issuance of provisional award letters to the successful companies.
The commission stated that bidders who failed to meet the payment deadline in accordance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) would forfeit their bid guarantees and have their provisional awards transferred to the next-ranked reserve bidders.
“Exactly a month ago, the NUPRC hosted the 2025 commercial bid conference in Abuja where 31 companies emerged winners of 37 oil and gas blocks. Having issued the winners with the provisional awards, compliance with the payment of signature bonuses has already begun,” the commission said.
The 37 blocks awarded in the licensing round cover several areas, including the Niger Delta onshore and shallow-water fields, deep offshore assets and frontier basins.
The assets include PPL 2A29 to PPL 2A62 in the Niger Delta, PPL 2010 in the deep offshore, PPL 308 in the Benin Basin, PPL 900 to PPL 903 in the Anambra Basin, PPL 700 in the Chad Basin, and PPL 800 and PPL 801 in the Benue Trough.
The NUPRC also released the names of the 31 successful companies, together with the ranked reserve bidders for each of the 37 blocks.
A total of 143 companies participated in the licensing exercise, submitting about 200 bids for the assets on offer. However, 13 of the 50 blocks originally listed for the round received no bids.
Under the PIA and the applicable licensing guidelines, successful bidders are required to pay signature bonuses ranging from $3 million to $7 million for each awarded block.
In addition to the signature bonus, the companies must provide the required guarantees, pay first-year rents and fulfil other post-award obligations within the prescribed period.
Failure to satisfy these requirements will result in the forfeiture of the affected company's bid guarantee and the revocation of its provisional award. The block will then be offered to the designated reserve bidder.
The NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, had previously urged the successful bidders to complete their payments promptly and move ahead with the development of their awarded assets.
The commission has advised bidders, industry stakeholders and members of the public to consult the 2025 Licensing Round portal for additional information on the awards and compliance requirements.
Under the applicable PIA framework, successful bidders have 90 days from the issuance of their provisional awards to complete the required payments and other conditions.
With the provisional awards issued following the July 21, 2026 commercial bid conference, the 90-day compliance period expires on October 19, 2026.
As of August 23, 2026, 33 days of the 90-day period have elapsed, leaving 57 days for the successful companies to complete their statutory obligations.
Companies that fail to pay their signature bonuses and first-year rents within the deadline risk losing both their bid guarantees and the provisional awards. The affected blocks would subsequently be reassigned to the respective reserve bidders in line with the licensing rules.
The NUPRC's latest notice therefore signals that the successful bidders have entered the final stages of the award process, with compliance now required before the provisional awards can progress toward full development of the assets.
Business
In The Spotlight
Vanguard recently published pathetic pictures of the Benin-Sapele-Warri Expressway; and Punch revealed to us what happens to the Lagos-Calabar Expressway, not even 15 per cent completed, each time there is a heavy downpour in the Lekki peninsula.
The road becomes so flooded, it becomes barely usable. Morning shows the day. If Tinubu-Umahi’s legacy road already shows evidence of long-term stress, pity the Nigerians who will ply that road ten years from now.
The Minister was in Lagos State recently, half-begging, half attempting to blackmail Governor Sanwo-Olu to cough up funds to repair the mistakes made by Engineer Umahi and the contractors who hastily embarked on the road without Environmental Impact Assessment. He is building in Lagos and coastal states the sort of rickety roads he left in Ebonyi State. He has the right President for that sort of shoddy business. Right now, parts of the road have been vandalized – even before completion. Fellow Nigerians are not paying attention as they should. Pity.
Vanguard, Punch and Daily Trust have been doing Nigerians a favour by pointing to one of the greatest failures of the Tinubu administration – the maintenance of federal highways under Minister David Umahi – whose major achievement in three years had been attracting attention to himself through a scandal involving homicide. On the whole, Nigerian roads, federal and state, have not been receiving the attention they deserve in the last eleven years; the neglect just got worse.
Experience on Nigerian roads from 1974-2019
“Hit the road, Jack”. Advice from my Sales Manager, in Boston, USA, 1968.
My first full time job was in selling. It was as a salesman for a leading pharmaceutical company, Lederle Laboratories, in 1968, that Mr. Al, for Albert, Abby, came into my life. As my Sales Manager, he monitored my activities and also as my mentor. He drilled into my head the idea that a salesman’s work consists of being on the road as much as possible; in order to meet customers. By the time I arrived in Nigeria, in 1974, to start work as the Marketing Manager of Abbott Laboratories, marketers of SIMILAC baby food, being on the road 70 per cent of the time had become routine. It was new to my sales staff, but proved rewarding for all concerned – company, staff and especially me.
Until August 1974, Ughelli, Delta State, was the farthest distance I ever traveled in Nigeria. I hit the road. By August 1975, I had covered all the 12 State capitals created by General Gowon, at least three times; and the trips had just begun. By 1998, after Abacha had increased the number of states to 36, I was in charge of Circulation in Vanguard; and my annual itinerary called for visiting all the offices at least once a quarter. In fact, I opened new Vanguard Offices in Ado-Ekiti, Yenagoa, Abakaliki, Gombe, Damaturu, Birnin Kebbi and Dutse. From 2001 to 2007, I traveled to all the stations at least three times a year. Over 80 per cent of the trips were by road – even though flight options were available to me. I got to know Nigerian roads as nobody I have ever met knew them. Divorce was threatened by the occupants of the home front. There was no major road constructed, expanded or diverted which I was not familiar with. By 2017, the trips were reduced to about 20 states every year.
Thus, each time a new Minister of Works is appointed, at least until 2019, I know the problems he faces. Shortly after President Jonathan assumed office, I published an article titled Nigeria’s 70 Most Important roads. These are the roads over which 70 to 80 per cent of goods are transported every day. Lagos-Ibadan Expressway remains the first one in all respects. I went further. The biggest map available at the CMS Bookshop was obtained and all the 70 roads were identified for the Minister in charge of roads with the advice: “take care of these roads and Nigerians will never forget you”. I wasted my time and effort; and Nigerians have been paying dearly for it. Since then, two Ministers of Works were appointed; each left Nigerian roads infinitely worse than when he started.
Three years of Umahi, more of the same
“It aint the things you don’t know that cause the problem; it’s things that you think you know that aint so.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882
To the best of my knowledge, no Minister of Works has been appointed in Nigeria, with the exception of late General Mamman Kontagora, who can be said to have had a fairly good knowledge of Nigerian roads by the time he was appointed. Consequently, we have selected so many good men; but, for the wrong task. Many people, including me, would have protested if Fashola was not appointed Minister by Buhari after his sterling performance as Governor of Lagos State. But, he failed dismally as Minister of Works. So, in all fairness to Umahi, many of the roads in terrible condition were inherited from past administrations. That said; it is also a fact that every new appointee is not compelled to accept the offer; and “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”. Umahi inherited several death traps; but, like all members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, he also helped to conceal the truth from Nigerians. Now, he is holding the bag; with all the incriminating evidence of poor performance. Umahi should also be excused for the failure to establish priorities. His boss, without consultations, despite all the lies told, had already conceived of a new road – the Lagos-Calabar Expressway – and the preferred contractor was determined, without bidding. The Minister spent his first year defending a decision made without his input. He added his own.
Umahi started out sounding like a “know-it-all”. He is an Engineer; so he knows all there is about road construction. He even dictated that all federal roads, irrespective of terrain, would be paved with cement – without consideration for the impact on the price of cement; which is essential for building construction.
Perhaps, not establishing objective priorities was his biggest blunder. Some Nigerian roads carry most of the heavy loads and require more attention. The Lapai-Bida, the Benin-Sapele and the Asaba-Onitsha roads each carry more loads than all the Federal roads in Taraba, Ebonyi and Kebbi states put together. I could not agree more with Senator Adams Oshiomole who recently carpeted Umahi for lack of priority in his selection of roads receiving his attention. The Okene-Auchi-Benin road carries the largest load of cement heading for Southern States, as well as fuel tankers moving North. Without prioritizing the most important federal roads, we are indirectly slowing down economic development, making products made in Nigeria less competitive and entrenching poverty. In the absence of rail nationwide, roads constitute the life-blood of our nation. They are soaked now with our blood.
By Dele Sobowale
In The Spotlight
How many fake agencies can the Tinubu Presidency go after at a time? When I posed this question in my column in early August, I intended it as rhetoric. The fake agencies and their operators apparently took it as a challenge.
On Friday evening, the ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Aliyu, SAN, emerged from his second meeting with the President in 48 hours to announce the discovery of yet another fake agency, grandly named the National Brands Development and Made-in-Nigeria Special Project Office and promoted by one Prince George Buchi Nwabueze.
Side note: Because of the length of these agency names, I’ll refer to them by their promoters, who happen to be ‘Princes’. Say, Prince Adeyemi’s PFIFC or Prince George’s agency. Okay?
So, I sat there among my colleagues, listening to Aliyu reel out another episode of an ongoing soap opera whose production studio is in the Nigerian civil service. We were arguably the first set of ears to get the gist, a privilege that comes with the burden of sharing it with the rest of the world.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I spotted the ICPC chairman making his way through the corridors leading to the President’s office for the umpteenth time. Aliyu had since become a standard feature at the State House since revelations about Prince Adeyemi’s fake agency, the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council, first went public.
Draped in a white agbada, Aliyu sounded fulfilled as he announced another big catch, Prince George. Unlike his counterpart in the PFIFC, Prince George did not settle for a spot in the Federal Secretariat. No! He operated from inside the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. He was also found to operate under at least five variations of his own name, which is fitting. A fake agency deserves a fake agency’s worth of aliases.
The President ordered his immediate arrest and suspended three permanent secretaries: M.S. Danjuma, Nadungu Gagare and Richard Pheelangwah.
If you are keeping count, you would have counted six fake agencies or actors in the past few months. Four! First came Prince Adeyemi’s now-dissolved PFIFC. Then the ICPC’s interim report of August 6 unearthed two more: the FCT Investment Promotion Agency and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency and Public-Private Partnership.
There is also the Presidential Implementation Committee on the Alienation of Federal Government Properties, a body created in 2000 under Obasanjo to manage the sale and lease of federal landed assets.
Though now dissolved, its erstwhile secretary, B.S. Dutsin-Ma, had continued operating. In early August, the Presidency directed him to cease acting on behalf of the committee and the Federal Government.
Last September, the Presidency distanced itself from Mr Fegho Umunubo, an erstwhile Special Assistant on Digital and Creative Economy in the Vice President’s office, whom it warned was still acting in his old capacity despite being let go.
Now Prince George’s outfit makes six similar instances in under a year. At this rate, the fake agencies and actors may soon require their own coordinating ministry. And who knows if the next ‘Prince’ may be found operating from the Presidential Villa itself?
Lest we think this plague is new, history says otherwise. You see, Nigeria has always had people who understood that in a country where government is everywhere, the most profitable business is to impersonate it. From the 1980s and 1990s, there are tales of fake recruitment syndicates selling appointment letters into the Army, Customs and NNPC from rented offices with convincing letterheads. Some past regimes responded with periodic raids, tribunals and occasional decrees. But the racket always reincarnates.
Over the years, the ICPC and EFCC have busted fake job-racketeering “ministries” in Abuja that interviewed hundreds of applicants and collected “processing fees” for years before anyone really noticed. The sobering reality is that we have always chased the “Princes” one at a time. And there will always be another ‘Prince’ to sit on that throne.
Also, it is not uniquely a Nigerian thing. In California in 2015, authorities uncovered a self-declared “Masonic Fraternal Police Department”, a policing outfit with its own badges, uniforms and a website claiming a 3,000-year history. It was run by three “Princes” until the state of California charged them with impersonating officers.
The difference is not that other countries breed fewer fraudsters than we do. It is that their systems make the fraud quite short-lived because the list of legitimate agencies is knowable by the public, leaving the fake ones to glow in the dark.
Moreover, if government ministries, departments and agencies were fewer than they are now, there would be fewer hiding places for the fakes.
Which brings me, once again, to one document still gathering dust on the President’s desk: the Oronsaye report. Commissioned in 2011 and submitted in 2012, Steve Oronsaye’s committee found 541 federal parastatals, commissions and agencies and recommended pruning them to about 263. It recommended mergers, scrapping, subsuming and anything else that could shrink that number.
To his credit, President Tinubu revived it in February 2024, ordering full implementation. Two and a half years later, however, the rathole of redundant agencies has only widened, and now fake ones are camouflaging among the real ones. Implementing Oronsaye would arguably leave fewer agencies with clearer supervision and a slimmer cost of governance. Again, it is not a silver bullet. Matter of fact, the report is 14 years old; some recommendations would need fresh legislation. But why chase rats one by one when we can fumigate the entire network of holes?
While the ICPC is hunting “Princes”, President Tinubu is assembling his Avengers. According to the APC Presidential Campaign Council list the Presidency released on Saturday morning, Tinubu will sit as chairman; Vice President Kashim Shettima and party chairman Nentawe Yilwatda will co-chair the council. Ex-Zamfara governor Abdulaziz Yari will serve as DG, and Hope Uzodimma, still fresh from surviving the storm that rocked the Progressives Governors’ Forum months ago, will serve as secretary.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Speaker Abbas and Governor Buni will serve as zonal heads; Oshiomhole will head mobilisation, while James Faleke will return to his 2022 role in election planning.
The media directorate already looks like a special-purpose media house of its own. Information Minister Mohammed Idris will coordinate alongside Dr Dele Alake, Bayo Onanuga, Issa-Onilu, Mr Tunde Rahman, Dr Sunday Dare, Daniel Bwala and Felix Morka.
By Stephen Angbulu