When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sacked Mamman Ahmadu as Director-General of Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on June 15, 2025, it wasn’t just a routine reshuffle. It was a pivotal move targeting one of Nigeria’s most intractable governance challenges, a lack of transparency in public spending.
Described by the presidency as a strategic step to “reposition the agency for greater efficiency and transparency,” the shake-up at the BPP may well be the starting point for a new era of reform—one where the government gets more value from every naira spent and citizens begin to see public funds translated into real services.
At the core of Nigeria’s service delivery failures is a procurement system that too often works in secrecy. Though the BPP was established under the Public Procurement Act of 2007 to regulate government purchasing and ensure value for money, years of weak enforcement, political interference and opaque processes have eroded its effectiveness.
Procurement corruption is far from abstract: it has real-world consequences. Roads remain death traps, schools lack desks, and hospitals go without drugs because funds vanish through inflated or fraudulent contracts. According to anti-corruption agencies, more than 60% of corruption cases annually in Nigeria are procurement-related.
Several initiatives have illustrated what is possible when procurement is made transparent. For instance, states like Kaduna have implemented Open Contracting Data Standards (OCDS) that allow citizens and reporters to trace public spending and report misuses. The result? Efficiency and less contract padding.
The federal government also established an e-Procurement portal named Nigeria Open Contracting Portal (NOCOPO) in a bid to increase transparency, although take-up and enforcement remain uneven
Experts contend that, in order to bring about real change, the recent restructuring of BPP must be more than an issue of personnel.
“This is an opportunity to return to the Public Procurement Act and close the loopholes through which manipulation occurs,” reckons Kemi Adeyemi, a governance analyst at the University of Abuja. “We need to protect whistleblowers, electronic audit controls, and professional, politically immune procurement officers.”
Civil society organisations also call for intensified citizen monitoring. Organisations like the Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) have taken the lead in introducing procurement monitoring programmes that engage ordinary citizens in monitoring projects in their localities.
Their reports have exposed scores of abandoned or poorly implemented projects across the country. Scaling up such models on a large scale across the country could drastically reduce wastage and enhance accountability.
There is also a movement towards decentralization of procurement responsibility and allowing ministries and agencies to conduct their own open bidding processes, with the BPP acting as an independent regulator and watchdog. This model has worked well in some developing countries, for instance, Rwanda, where the e-Procurement System (Umucyo) has recorded an impressive improvement in efficiency and public trust.
But reform is hard to come by. The powerful interests that benefit from the current non-functionality will resist. That’s why political will, civic activism, and institutional cooperation remains important.
The government of Tinubu demonstrates that the restructuring of the BPP is not cosmetic but founded on a real commitment to plug leakages, penalize violators, and reward compliance. The selection of a new DG with a reputation for integrity and reform experience will send the right signal. In the same vein, making procurement data available not only for availability, but for accessibility to the ordinary Nigerian, will start to cultivate a culture of inspection.
This shake-up offers more than a personnel change—it’s a fork in the road. Will the BPP continue as a symbolic bureaucracy or become a backbone of responsible governance? If President Tinubu’s administration follows through, this moment could be remembered for when Nigeria finally began to plug the leaks and invest in its people.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's dismissal of Mamman Ahmadu as the Director-General of Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) is a significant move aiming to tackle a longstanding issue of non-transparency in public spending. This restructuring is seen as a strategic initiative to enhance the agency's efficiency and transparency, potentially signaling a new era of reform where public funds are more effectively translated into tangible services. The BPP, created by the Public Procurement Act of 2007, has been plagued by weak enforcement, political interference, and secrecy, leading to significant procurement corruption, with over 60% of annual corruption cases in Nigeria linked to procurement.
Positive changes are already visible through initiatives like the Open Contracting Data Standards in states such as Kaduna, and the federal government's e-Procurement portal. These have demonstrated improved efficiency and accountability by allowing citizens to track public spending. Experts emphasize that the reform of the BPP needs to go beyond personnel changes and should include revisiting the Public Procurement Act, safeguarding whistleblowers, applying electronic audit controls, and ensuring procurement officers operate without political influence. Moreover, civil society organizations advocate for increased citizen monitoring to reduce wastage and bolster accountability.
There's also a push towards decentralizing procurement responsibilities, enabling ministries and agencies to manage their own open bidding processes under the BPP's supervision as a regulator. This model, successfully employed in Rwanda, suggests potential for increased efficiency and trust in Nigeria. However, reform will face resistance from vested interests benefiting from the current system. Political determination, civic engagement, and institutional collaboration are necessary to overcome these challenges.
Ultimately, the government’s commitment, demonstrated through the choice of a new DG known for integrity and reform, hints at a real intention to curb corruption, enforce compliance, and empower citizens in monitoring procurement. This juncture marks a pivotal opportunity for the BPP to evolve from symbolic bureaucracy to a pillar of accountable governance, should President Tinubu's administration maintain the momentum and focus on making procurement data accessible to ordinary Nigerians.
