> Good question... can you ktrace -id the pkg_add, and see what comes out?

i did a ktrace -id make install; kdump | grep addnerd > addnerd.txt: 
mkdir -1 errno 17 File exists

in Makefile i see:
  -@${MKDIR} ${PREFIX}/${PGUSER}
  @${SETENV} ${MAKE_ENV} addnerd -h ${PREFIX} -g ${PGROUP} ${PGUSER}

the first line prevents the second one from working.
comment out the first line and all goes ok.
~n