Chairman of Geregu Power Plc, Senator Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari, has personally provided the funds required to clear the company's outstanding bond obligation, following a default on a scheduled coupon and principal repayment that had unsettled bondholders and investors in recent weeks.

In a statement issued through his media office, Yari said he decided to step in and cover the immediate obligation himself, even though the day-to-day management of the debt was not his personal responsibility to carry.

He stressed that the intervention should not be read as an admission that the obligation belongs to him personally, nor as a judgment that the current board or management created the problem, describing it instead as a decision made in the interest of the institution he chairs.

The obligation traces back to Geregu's N40.09 billion Series 1 Senior Unsecured Bond, issued in July 2022 at a fixed coupon of 14.50 per cent under the company's N100 billion debt issuance programme, more than three years before the current ownership and board took control.

The bond was structured with semi-annual coupon payments and amortising principal repayments running through to its July 2029 maturity.

FMDQ Securities Exchange, which lists the instrument, had flagged it as in default on its eighth coupon payment and fourth bullet principal repayment, with the shortfall put at roughly N6 billion out of a total bond payable of N34 billion as of December 2025.

The default came about eight months after Femi Otedola sold his majority stake in Geregu to Yari's MA'AM Energy Limited in a roughly $750 million, debt-financed transaction completed in December 2025.

Questions have since emerged over how proceeds from the bond were used, with a financial analyst disclosing that a N31 billion restricted cash account, once seen as a ready source for servicing the debt, had reportedly already been utilised by the time the new management sought to draw on it.

Geregu's half-year results for the six months through June 2026 also showed profit after tax collapsing 88 per cent to N2.5 billion, with revenue down nearly 79 per cent, a decline analysts have linked to a sharp drop in the plant's generation output.

Yari said that while his intervention addresses the immediate concern facing bondholders, it does not close the underlying matter or absolve the former owners of what he called a disappointing legacy.

He said ongoing discussions with the former owners and management continue, with both sides committed to working in good faith toward a full and fair accounting of how the obligation arose and how it ought to be resolved between the parties.

His stated objective, he said, is a final resolution involving either fair treatment or reimbursement of the funds he has now advanced, alongside clear arrangements for the company's future obligations to bondholders.

The chairman also linked his decision to broader national interest, saying that as a stakeholder and a serving Senator of the Federal Republic, he considered it his duty to support the success of the federal government's Renewed Hope Agenda for the power sector, commending President Bola Tinubu for his support of the industry.

Yari closed by assuring bondholders, shareholders and the wider Geregu community that the company's obligations will be honoured, its governance will remain sound, and its future is not in question, pledging to keep stakeholders updated as the matter moves toward final resolution.