Gentlemen of the Press,
We have carefully reviewed the press statement issued by Engr Olushola George Olumoroti, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority (LNRBDA), dated 11th May, 2026. We feel compelled as a responsible and law-abiding labour movement to set the record straight, correct deliberate misrepresentations, and present the facts as they truly are to the Nigerian public, relevant government authorities, and all anti-corruption agencies.
The Labour Movement, in its character and tradition, does not act on emotions, bias, or sentiments. Every action taken by the NUAAE and the NLC in relation to the affairs of LNRBDA is grounded in facts, documented evidence, established due process, and the protection of the rights and welfare of Nigerian workers. We reject, in its entirety, the attempt by the Managing Director to portray the legitimate agitation of workers as the act of a single aggrieved individual.
THE ORIGIN OF THIS MATTER: VICTIMIZATION THAT PREDATES OLUMOROTI
It is important that Nigerians understand the true history of this matter. The victimization of Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji and other union leaders and members in LNRBDA did not begin under the current management. It began under the tenure of Engr Saheed Aremu, the immediate past Managing Director, at the time when the Union formally reported his maladministration to the Honourable Minister of Water Resources. That act of reporting corruption in the interest of the Nigerian public was met, not with investigation or gratitude, but with deliberate persecution.
The corrupt case that was reported by the Union chose to fight back. Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji, who was the Branch Chairman at the time, became the primary target. He was abruptly removed from his position as Area Manager, Ilorin Area office, a punitive transfer by all reasonable interpretation. This is the foundation upon which the current management has continued to build its campaign of harassment.
The Managing Director has presented the disciplinary process against Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji as thorough, fair, and multi-layered. The truth is the exact opposite.
Following his removal as Area Manager, Comrade Raji submitted a handing-over note as required. He was subsequently notified in writing to provide clarifications on certain aspects of that handing-over report. He duly responded to all the issues raised in writing. However, instead of being issued a formal query, which is the fundamental requirement of natural justice and public service rules before any disciplinary committee can be constituted, he was summoned directly before a disciplinary committee. He was never queried. A disciplinary committee without a prior query is a nullity in law and public service procedure.
Furthermore, the disputed IOUs referenced by the Managing Director relate to transactions as far back as 2018. Disciplinary proceedings against Comrade Raji were only initiated in 2022, a gap of four years. During this period, multiple audits were conducted at LNRBDA, and none of those audits raised any findings or concerns against Comrade Raji. It is a fundamental principle of administrative fairness and due process that matters reviewed and cleared through established audit processes cannot be selectively reopened years later without credible new evidence, for purposes that are clearly punitive and political.
It is also critically important that the Nigerian public understands the internal financial structure and accountability chain that governs the operations of an Area Office such as the Ilorin Area Office. The Area Office Accountant is the designated custodian of all funds in the Area Office. It is the Area Office Accountant who releases funds as required for operational exigencies, and it is equally the statutory responsibility of the Area Office Accountant to ensure that all IOUs approved by the Area Manager are duly tracked, monitored, and retired in accordance with financial regulations. The Area Manager approves; the Accountant controls, disburses, and ensures retirement.
If any IOU approved by Comrade Raji in his capacity as Area Manager was not duly retired, the primary accountability for that failure rests with the Area Office Accountant who was the designated officer responsible for ensuring retirement of all such IOUs. The Managing Director’s attempt to lay sole culpability at the feet of Comrade Raji, while completely ignoring the role and responsibility of the Accountant in the retirement process, is not only procedurally dishonest, it exposes the selective and targeted nature of this entire disciplinary exercise. A fair and proper investigation would have examined the conduct and records of the Area Office Accountant with equal, if not greater, scrutiny. The fact is that it did speak volumes about the true intent behind this persecution.
When the first disciplinary committee submitted its report and recommended sanctions in 2023, those recommendations were forwarded to the Ministry of Water Resources for approval. The Ministry, finding no merit in the case as presented and recognising the procedural defects in the disciplinary process, did not respond to the Authority’s prayers. This is a critical fact that the Managing Director has deliberately omitted from his statement.
Engr Olumoroti resumed office in April 2025 and has since established a pattern of conduct that is deeply troubling to workers and to the integrity of public financial management.
Shortly after the new management conducted a mass transfer of staff to various Area and Project Offices, the Branch Union approached the Managing Director with a legitimate request for the payment of the statutory 28-day relocation allowance owed to newly employed and transferred staff. The Managing Director bluntly refused, claiming that his predecessor did not make such payments. However, subsequent investigations confirmed that the Managing Director and the Executive Directors had paid themselves the same 28-day allowance, while denying the same entitlement to junior staff. This is discriminatory, unconscionable, and contrary to public service rules.
On procurement irregularities: When the Union raised observations about specific irregularities in the Authority’s Procurement Unit, the Managing Director’s response was shockingly cavalier: he stated that the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) was aware of and complicit in the irregularities. This statement, made to union representatives, is a direct admission that procurement processes in LNRBDA are compromised, and it represents a serious national concern that demands immediate regulatory scrutiny.
On the usurpation of the Executive Director’s financial powers: Perhaps the most alarming development under this management is the deliberate undermining of the Executive Director, Finance and Administration (ED F&A), who by law and financial regulations, is the designated officer for the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) payment platform. The Managing Director has refused to enroll the ED F&A on the GIFMIS platform, in direct violation of financial regulations, and has, instead, enrolled a subordinate officer, who can be counted upon to rubber-stamp his financial decisions without scrutiny. This is a calculated circumvention of internal controls designed to prevent fraud.
The members of our Union in LNRBDA have witnessed the dangerous and disturbing standoff between the Managing Director and the ED F&A, following a legitimate accountability request routed through a file by the ED F&A to the Procurement Officer. The Managing Director’s response to that lawful internal accountability request was compromising and indefensible. This is not the behaviour of a leader who respects the rule of law; it is the behaviour of an individual intent on concentrating financial authority in his own hands for personal gain.
The Managing Director has further alleged in his statement that the Union’s actions on 11th May, 2026 were a deliberate attempt to prevent and obstruct a committee that was set up, on the directive of the Honourable Minister of Water Resources, to verify Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji’s claim that the evidence against him was forged. We wish to state, clearly, categorically, and without any equivocation, that this allegation is entirely false and deeply misleading.
As at 11th May, 2026, the very date of the protest, Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji had not been formally communicated, in writing or otherwise, of any Ministerial directive, nor of the inauguration of any such verification committee. No letter, memo, notice, or official correspondence of any kind had been served on Comrade Raji informing him that a committee had been constituted to review his claims, or that he was expected to appear before or cooperate with such a committee on that date or at any time shortly thereafter.
How then can the Managing Director credibly allege that the Union mobilised a protest to obstruct a process that its principal subject had not even been officially informed about? This claim does not stand up to the most basic scrutiny. It is an afterthought, a convenient narrative constructed to justify the violent suppression of a legitimate labour protest and to deflect attention from the genuine grievances of workers.
We challenge the Managing Director to produce, openly and publicly, documentary evidence showing the date on which Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji was officially notified of the Ministerial directive and the inauguration of the verification committee. If no such communication was issued before 11th May, 2026, and we are confident none was, then the Managing Director owes Comrade Raji, the Union, and the Nigerian public a full and unreserved apology for this deliberate misrepresentation.
The Managing Director has characterised the actions of workers on 11th May as a “violent disturbance” and “hooliganism,” and has attempted to paint the NLC and NUAAE members as aggressors. This characterisation is not only false, it is a calculated inversion of the truth, designed to criminalise the victims and shield the perpetrators.
The facts are as follows: On 11th May, 2026, NLC members and NUAAE members were conducting a peaceful protest outside the gates of the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority. The protest was lawful, orderly, and consistent with the constitutional rights of Nigerian workers to freedom of assembly and expression. At no point did the protesting workers threaten, assault, or provoke any individual.
It was at this point that some individuals ( members of staff), who we have strong reason to believe were induced and mobilised by the Managing Director, emerged from inside the organisation premises and launched an unprovoked, premeditated attack on our peaceful protesters with cutlasses. This brazen act of violence from inside the facility was the singular cause of the injuries recorded on that day. In the chaos that followed that unprovoked assault, several persons sustained injuries, including members of the NLC and NUAAE, as they attempted to defend themselves from the cutlass-wielding attackers.
We wish to state clearly and unequivocally: our members did not start this violence. The violence was brought to them. This is not a matter of competing narratives. We are in possession of video evidence and eyewitness accounts that clearly and conclusively establish who launched the attack. This evidence will be made available to law enforcement agencies, the Honourable Minister, and any legitimate investigative body that calls for it. We challenge the Managing Director to make the same commitment to transparency regarding the identities and affiliations of the three individuals who carried cutlasses into a peaceful protest.
We call on the Nigeria Police Force to conduct a full, impartial, and evidence-based investigation into the violence of 11th May, 2026, and to ensure that those who instigated and carried out the attack on peaceful protesters are identified, arrested, and prosecuted to the full extent of the law, regardless of whose authority they may have acted.
The Managing Director has consistently hidden behind the authority of the Honourable Minister of Water Resources to justify his actions against our members. He has claimed that the Ministry sanctioned and backed his handling of the disciplinary matter against Comrade Mudi Olayinka Raji and, by extension, the Union. We hereby issue a direct and public challenge to Engr Olushola George Olumoroti:
Present openly, to the press, to the workers of LNRBDA, and to the Nigerian public, any written directive from the Honourable Minister of Water Resources that instructs or authorises that our members in LNRBDA must forcefully accept guilt in this matter. If such a directive exists, let it be seen. Let the Minister’s office confirm it. Let Nigerians judge whether the Honourable Minister of a democratic government issued orders compelling workers to accept guilt under duress, without fair hearing, without due process, and in violation of their constitutional rights.
We are confident that no such directive exists in the form the Managing Director has implied, and that he has been invoking the Minister’s name as a shield to lend false legitimacy to what is nothing more than a personal vendetta against union leaders who dared to speak truth to power.
We equally call on the Honourable Minister of Water Resources to publicly clarify the scope and content of any directives issued to the LNRBDA management regarding this matter, so that workers and the Nigerian public are not misled.
In light of the foregoing, the NUAAE and the NLC hereby make the following demands:
The Honourable Minister of Water Resources is urged to order a full, independent, and transparent investigation into the financial management, procurement practices, and administrative conduct of Engr Olushola George Olumoroti as MD/CEO of LNRBDA.
The Ministry is further called upon to direct that the GIFMIS platform enrollment procedures be immediately corrected to restore the rightful authority of the ED Finance and Administration in line with extant financial regulations.
We demand the immediate payment of all outstanding 28-day relocation allowances owed to transferred and newly employed staff of LNRBDA.
We demand the immediate correction of all erroneous grade level placements of our members in LNRBDA, the proper and accurate placement of affected members at their rightful grade levels in accordance with extant public service rules and their years of service, and the unconditional release of all withheld promotion letters belonging to our members. The deliberate withholding of promotion letters as a tool of punishment and intimidation against workers is unlawful, demoralising, and an abuse of management authority that must stop forthwith.
We demand that the Managing Director be formally cautioned by the appropriate authorities to immediately desist from the continuous victimization of our members in LNRBDA in all its forms, whether through arbitrary transfers, withholding of entitlements, selective disciplinary actions, or any other punitive measures designed to suppress legitimate union activity and silence workers who speak up against wrongdoing.
We further demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all queries issued to our members in connection with their participation in the peaceful and lawful protest of 11th May, 2026. Participation in a lawful protest is a constitutionally guaranteed right of every Nigerian worker. Issuing queries to workers for exercising this right is not only an act of victimization, it is a direct assault on the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and we will resist it with every lawful means available to us.
We demand that the Managing Director immediately and completely desist from all acts of high-handedness and any conduct or policy designed to undermine, weaken, intimidate, or circumvent legitimate union activities and the rights of union members in LNRBDA. The right of workers to organize, associate, and collectively bargain is guaranteed by law and shall not be trampled upon by any management, however highly placed.
We call on the Managing Director to immediately return the official government vehicle of LNRBDA that was taken to Lagos for the private and personal use of his wife. Government assets are held in trust for the Nigerian people and are not personal property to be deployed for private family purposes. This misappropriation of public property is a serious breach of the rules governing the use of government assets and must be rectified without further delay. The relevant oversight authorities are hereby put on notice of this matter.
We call on the Nigeria Police Force to take up, as a matter of urgency, the investigation of the cutlass attack on peaceful NLC and NUAAE protesters on 11th May, 2026, and to hold the sponsors and perpetrators of that violence fully accountable.
We call on the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to beam their searchlights on the activities and transactions at LNRBDA under the current management, as we will be formally writing to these agencies with documented evidence in the days ahead.
We affirm our commitment to due process and the rule of law, and we call on the Managing Director to do the same.
The Labour Movement is not a tool of mischief, personal vendetta, or political manipulation. We are the voice of the Nigerian worker, and we will continue to speak truth to power without fear or favour. The Managing Director’s attempt to reduce a systemic crisis of governance, financial recklessness, and worker victimization to the personal misconduct of one union leader is not only misleading, it is an insult to the intelligence of the Nigerian public.
The events of 11th May have shown clearly that when workers speak up against corruption, those in power will go to any length, including unleashing violence against peaceful protesters, to silence them. We will not be silenced. The video evidence speaks for itself, and justice will be served.
Corruption fights back. But the Labour Movement will not be intimidated.
E-Signed:
Comrade Muritala Saheed Olayinka
Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Kwara State Council
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