The biggest whopper in Henry Iwenofu’s long string of missteps comes from a corporation he established, the grandiosely named Missouri American Energy Company. The company was originally registered with the state as Onwa Group Inc., incorporated by Iwenofu and a partner, for the purpose of owning a restaurant. In 2014, the corporation was amended for the purpose of “energy and acts legally permitted” with ownership entirely granted to Iwenofu. At that time, the name remained unchanged. They amended again in 2015, changing the name to Missouri American Energy Company, and issuing nearly 37 million shares of stock. The corporation was dissolved in 2022, for failure to file required reports with the secretary of state.
According to their website, this company, of which Iwenofu is the CEO, has “representative partners and commercial offices in London, United Kingdom, Chesterfield Missouri & Washington, United States and, Abuja, Nigeria.” They claim a portfolio of “petrochemical Refinery projects and 3 off-grid power processing plants across Nigeria.” The phone number for their Chesterfield office is an AT&T cell phone. A call to the office rolled directly to voicemail, with a greeting in a woman’s voice with a British accent. The management team appears to be comprised of people who, while they may have assisted Iwenofu in some small capacity in the past, have no ongoing relationship with the company. In some cases, a quick Google search finds that the photograph was pulled from another website. We found only one LinkedIn profile which actually mentioned employment with the company, with a term which ended six years ago.
A Nigerian news story from 2017 leads with the exciting news that “The Federal Government’s plan to establish modular refineries in the oil producing areas has received a boost with a leading United States modular refinery investor, Missouri American Energy, Moham, setting aside $200 million for the take-off of Nigeria’s first modular refinery.” It promises an additional $200 million for “infrastructure development.” But alas, the money was not in hand, nor even pledged in any concrete way. According to an oil industry expert with whom we spoke, Iwenofu was likely shopping for a deal which he could finance with government money, from the United States Trade and Development Agency.
Seven years later, the refinery was never built, and Nigerian media was reporting on a similar offer from Swedish investors. Was Henry Iwenofu, who was then living in a $50,000 house and struggling to keep his village board members from tossing him, really able to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars, or was this some sort of scam or self indulgent attention grab? To the Nigerians, who waited seven years for Iwenofu to produce, it doesn’t really matter.
