Secrets Reporters
The first students of the University of Agriculture, Science and Technology, Ihugh, took their matriculation oath in June 2026 – 664 young men and women, the pioneer set of Governor Hyacinth Alia’s flagship university in Vandeikya Local Government Area. The National Universities Commission (NUC) had approved the university in May 2025. By January this year, officials who inspected the take-off campus reported the administrative block more than 90 per cent complete and the student hostels at what they described as “a mature stage.”
Four months after that inspection on 11 May 2026, the Alia administration awarded four contracts worth n14.12 billion to build that same campus.
The awards are listed in the state’s own official contract records. SOTTAM Synergy and Resources Limited took N6.72 billion for the campus internal road network, drainage structures and landscaping. The same company took another N627.78 million for the substation, power lines, solar street lighting and generating sets. Pennydolls Global Concepts Limited took N3.63 billion to construct and furnish 800-capacity quad-room student hostels and Tidolls Consult Limited took n3.14 billion for utility vehicles, classroom seats, office furniture, ICT infrastructure and cooling systems.
A campus whose hostels were already “at a mature stage” in January does not obviously need a N3.63 billion hostel construction contract in May. The state has published no progress report, no site milestone and no completion record tying any of the four awards to work done after May. The records say the contracts were awarded; nothing in the public record says what has happened since.
Then there is the matter of who stood where. Reporting on the university’s 2025 temp-site contracts shows the pioneer vice-chancellor, Professor Qrisstuberg Amua, appearing at the signing ceremony representing SOTTAM, the contractor. A year later, the same SOTTAM collected two of the four May 2026 awards, worth a combined ₦7.35 billion, on the campus the same vice-chancellor runs. A vice-chancellor signing on behalf of a contractor that later wins billions in contracts on his own campus is the textbook shape of a conflict of interest, and it played out in the open.
The other two awardees are harder to see. Pennydolls Global Concepts (N3.63 billion) and Tidolls Consult (N3.14 billion) have no website, no published track record and no public footprint beyond the state’s own award records. Between them they collected N6.77 billion which is nearly half the package from a government that published their names and nothing else about them.
SOTTAM by our findings is a known quantity. It describes itself as founded in 2011, and the Aspam Group publicly identifies it as a subsidiary. Aspam’s chairman, Dr Solomon Akperekpe, is a prominent Benue businessman who has openly collaborated with the Alia administration, leading delegations, appearing at government events, praising the governor’s programmes. His group’s company won the two largest awards on a campus whose vice-chancellor had represented it at a contract signing.
