More than two years after Akwa Ibom Governor Umo Eno laid the foundation for the Ewet Luxury Garden Estate in Uyo, the project has missed successive completion targets despite attracting budgetary provisions of at least N10.32 billion.
The latest setback has prompted Mr Eno to threaten termination of the contract awarded to Western Legacy Investment Limited if the contractor fails to complete the remaining 35 buildings within three months.
|
|
An examination by PREMIUM TIMES of the 2025 and 2026 Akwa Ibom budgets shows that N10.32 billion was provided for components of the luxury estate under the Akwa Ibom Investment Corporation (AKICORP).
The 2025 budget contained N4.434 billion for internal roads and external works at the Ewet Luxury Gardens and another N5 billion for the construction of 35 apartments, commercial offices and a luxury park.
|
|
|
|---|
In the 2026 budget, the state budgeted another N886.18 million for the construction of the 35-unit apartment complex, commercial offices and a luxury park.
The combined provision for the project for the two-year period is N10.32 billion.
PREMIUM TIMES could not trace a specific budgetary allocation for the project in the 2024 approved and revised budget, although the governor performed the foundation-laying ceremony in July that year.
Stay Ahead with Premium Times
Follow us on Google News and never miss breaking stories, investigations, and in-depth reporting.
Add as a preferred source on Google
The project is one of the major real estate investments pursued by the Eno administration, which has repeatedly presented commercial property development as a strategy for generating revenue for the state.
But the continued delay, the changing completion timelines and the absence of publicly available information on the procurement process and payments to the contractor raise questions about transparency and project management.
From eight months to three years?
At the foundation-laying ceremony in July 2024, Mr Eno said the Ewet Luxury Garden was part of his administration’s plan to provide housing for different income groups.
He described the estate as a prototype of the proposed Dakkada Luxury Estate and said it would be a smart residential development initiated for local residents and investors from the Nigerian diaspora.
The governor said the project was primarily a business venture, with the housing units to be sold outright to interested buyers.
He said construction was expected to commence immediately, beginning with the establishment of a project office, and encouraged prospective buyers, particularly those in the diaspora, to make early enquiries.
Mr Eno also indicated that the project would be completed within eight months. That timeline suggested that the estate should have been completed around March 2025.
In October 2024, the Managing Director of AKICORP, Imo-Abasi Jacob, said the contractor had been given until March 2025 to complete and hand over the estate to the state government. But the March 2025 deadline passed without the completion and handover of the project.
A year later, in April 2026, the state government again announced that the 35 units of duplexes would soon be ready for occupants. Mr Eno, who visited the estate for his birthday breakfast at its Experience Centre, said the houses would be handed over to their owners within two months.
The contractor, Western Legacy Investment Limited, was at the time quoted as saying it had received instructions to complete the project within 60 days. The latest directive from the governor, however, suggests that the April deadline was also not met.
Eno threatens termination
In a media report on Sunday by the governor’s spokesperson, Ekerete Udoh, Mr Eno expressed dissatisfaction with the pace of work when he made an unscheduled inspection of the project after attending a church service at Qua Iboe Church, Ewet Offot, Uyo.
The governor ordered the contractor to accelerate work and complete the development within three months.
He said the estate comprised 35 buildings and directed the Commissioner for Special Duties, Emem Bob, to ensure that 12 buildings were completed and handed over to the government every month, beginning from September.
Mr Eno warned that he would terminate the contract if the targets were not met. “I am not pleased at the state of this project,” the governor said.
“This project itself is well overdue for handing over to those who have bought these houses.” He also ordered the termination of the construction of porch roofs on the buildings.
The threat of termination is the latest attempt by the government to compel the contractor to complete a project that was initially expected to be delivered within eight months but has remained under construction for more than two years.
The state government had earlier described the project as a 35-unit high-end residential development consisting of five-bedroom detached duplexes and other facilities.
At the foundation-laying ceremony, the then Commissioner for Housing, Raphael Bassey, said the development would include residential buildings, boys’ quarters, recreational facilities, walkways, a 100-capacity multipurpose hall, office facilities, parking spaces, a security house and a central power plant.
The project sits on 3.5 hectares of land.
Mr Jacob, the AKICORP managing director, said the estate was conceived as a revenue-generating investment and aligned with the corporation’s objective of attracting investors to “come, live and work” in Akwa Ibom.
Despite the N10.3 billion budgeted for the project, the government has not publicly disclosed how much of the budgetary provisions has been released or paid to Western Legacy Investment Limited.
That information could help establish whether the slow pace of work resulted from inadequate funding, delayed payments, contractual issues or other factors.
Without payment and implementation details, it is difficult to independently determine whether the contractor’s failure to meet the completion deadlines was due to the availability of funds or solely to its capacity and performance.
The governor’s latest inspection and threat to terminate the contract indicate that the government is holding the contractor responsible for the delay.
But the state government has yet to publicly provide details of its own financial obligations under the contract or whether those obligations have been fully met.
Procurement questions
Western Legacy Investment Limited, according to reports published on the official Akwa Ibom State Government website, is the contractor handling the Ewet Luxury Garden project.
The same company is also handling the controversial 18-storey Ibom Tower project in Lagos, for which Akwa Ibom has made a N41.05 billion budgetary provision.
PREMIUM TIMES recently reported that the state government had not publicly disclosed key procurement information concerning the Ibom Tower project, including bidding documents, the number of companies that participated in the process, evaluation reports, award documents and the contract sum.
Checks by PREMIUM TIMES at the Corporate Affairs Commission show that Western Legacy Construction was incorporated in Nigeria on 11 July 2023, about two months after Mr Eno assumed office and roughly one year before the Ewet Luxury Garden project was flagged off.
The company was also incorporated about 15 months before the Ibom Tower project was formally flagged off in November 2024, according to a previous PREMIUM TIMES report.
PREMIUM TIMES could not find publicly available bidding records for the Ewet Luxury Garden contract on the Akwa Ibom State Government’s procurement portal, official website or media platforms.
The records reviewed also did not contain other procurement information that would enable the public to independently examine the process that led to the selection of the contractor, including bidding details, evaluation documents, the contract sum and other contractual terms.
This is noteworthy because the project has received budgetary provisions running into billions of naira while its original completion deadline has passed by more than a year.
The project was conceived as a commercial venture expected to generate revenue for the state, with the houses to be sold to buyers.
However, more than two years after the groundbreaking ceremony, the estate has not been handed over to the buyers the governor said were expected to acquire the properties.
The government itself acknowledged the delay when Mr Eno said during Sunday’s inspection that the project was “well overdue” for handover.
The governor’s latest three-month ultimatum has created another deadline for a project that has already missed at least two publicly stated completion targets.
Contractor unavailable
PREMIUM TIMES could not obtain a response from Western Legacy Investment Limited.
The company does not appear to maintain a dedicated, publicly verifiable corporate website through which its management could be reached for comment.
READ ALSO: Despite withholding spending details, Eno says he’ll account for Akwa Ibom’s N2.943 trillion revenue
It is unclear whether the contractor accepts responsibility for the delays or whether it has raised concerns with the government regarding funding, design changes, variations or other issues affecting the project.
In April, the Managing Director of Western Legacy Investment Limited, Kunle Adelipa, said the company had received marching orders to complete the project within 60 days and pledged to meet the deadline.
The latest inspection by the governor shows that the project was still incomplete months after that assurance.
The Ewet Luxury Garden Estate remains one of several major projects under the Eno administration that have continued beyond their initial timelines.
The state government has recently faced questions over the transparency and implementation of other multibillion-naira projects, including the N41.05 billion Ibom Tower in Lagos.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that the government declined to disclose the cost of that project despite the substantial budgetary provision, while key procurement details were not publicly available.
The latest ultimatum now places Western Legacy Investment Limited under pressure to deliver 12 completed buildings every month from September.
Whether the contractor meets that target and whether the government will make public the financial and contractual details behind a project for which at least N10.32 billion has been budgeted in two years will determine whether the governor’s latest threat produces a different outcome from the earlier completion deadlines.
Discover more from Premium Times Nigeria
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
More News
