The dispute matters because it exposes a gap between what the Presidency announces and what its own bureaucracy executes. More than a month after President Bola Tinubu named a new agency head, the outgoing official is still signing correspondence, meeting cabinet ministers, and speaking for the agency in public.

On June 26, Special Adviser on Information and Strategy Bayo Onanuga announced that Abdulrazaq Namdas, a former House of Representatives spokesperson, would take over as Executive Secretary of BCDA. The statement said the appointment took immediate effect. It named Namdas as the replacement for Dr. Dakorinama Alabo George, who the statement said had resigned to pursue an elective post in Rivers State.

Namdas has not taken office. According to reporting cited in the Backpage column, Namdas, Patrick Obahiagbon and Chukwuma Umeoji, all named in the same June 26 batch of appointments, went to the office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation George Akume to collect their letters. Obahiagbon and Umeoji, appointed to posts at the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, received theirs. Namdas waited two hours. He was then told to leave without one.

No public letter has followed since.

Meanwhile George resurfaced at BCDA. Agency staff quoted in newspaper reports said he never fully relinquished control after submitting his resignation, and continued issuing directives from his old office. The clearest evidence came on July 9, when George met Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele in Abuja. He asked for the release of budgetary allocations for border infrastructure projects.

A Rivers-based Facebook page, Port Harcourt Force, published a detailed account of that meeting with official photographs. It referred to George throughout as BCDA's "Executive Secretary." He is quoted telling Oyedele that the agency had brokered a proposed $2bn Chinese investment in a livestock processing hub in Maigatari, Jigawa State. He also said BCDA was working with security agencies to establish a Border Communities Intelligence Corps.

Those are not the actions of a man who has left office.

Asked about the contradiction, Onanuga told Punch: "As far as I know, the President has not changed his mind. Namdas remains the Executive Secretary of the agency." He added that critics commenting on the matter "don't know what they are talking about." Pressed on why Namdas has not resumed, Onanuga said the responsibility sits with the SGF's office. "His appointment has been communicated to the Office of the SGF, so the SGF has to give him a letter," he said.

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That letter has not been issued.

Some people close to George offered a separate explanation to another outlet, saying he returned to BCDA because he did not actually contest the Rivers APC governorship primary but was persuaded to withdraw. That account does not address the resignation letter George submitted before the March 31 deadline set by the Presidency for officials seeking to run in 2027 elections.

Six senior officials resigned to meet that deadline: Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf Tuggar, Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu, Transportation Minister Sa'idu Alkali, Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs Yusuf Tanko Sununu, Petroleum Technology Development Fund Executive Secretary Ahmed Galadima, and George. Of the six, Galadima won the Adamawa APC governorship ticket. Sununu secured a Kebbi APC senatorial ticket. The other four, including George, did not succeed in their contests. Tuggar's old post is now held by Bianca Ojukwu. Joseph Olasunkanmi Tegbe has taken Adelabu's former seat at Power. Neither Tuggar nor Alkali attempted to reclaim their vacated positions.

Namdas followed the same pattern the Presidency appears to expect. He resigned from his seat as North East zonal representative on the Niger Delta Development Commission board to pursue the Adamawa APC governorship ticket. He lost. He did not return to NDDC. Instead he was named to BCDA, a position widely described by Nigerian outlets as a consolation appointment after a failed campaign.

George's case differs in one respect: he is occupying the seat he left, without a presidential order reversing his resignation or reappointing him. Under the 1999 Constitution, executive appointments and removals rest with the president alone. No public document has surfaced showing Tinubu rescinded George's resignation or countermanded the June 26 statement naming Namdas as his successor.

The unresolved question sits inside the SGF's office. George Akume has not explained, in any public statement reviewed for this story, why letters went out to two of three appointees named alongside Namdas on June 26 while his was withheld. The opposition African Democratic Congress has already pointed to the episode as evidence of disorder inside the administration.

On July 26, the day before this article was reported, the Presidency announced a further appointment: Wasiu Olanrewaju-Smart as Special Adviser on National Assembly Matters in the House of Representatives. Whether his letter reaches the SGF's office, and whether it is issued without the delay that has now left BCDA with two men answering to the title of Executive Secretary, remains to be seen.