Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused President Bola Tinubu of selfish interests in his award of the Lagos-Calabar highway to Hitech engineering, which is owned by Gilbert Chagoury.
Atiku who was the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election won by Tinubu said the President’s son, Seyi, is a director on the board of CDK Integrated Industries, a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group, which manufactures ceramic tiles and sanitary towels.
Citing a report by Paris-based Africa Intelligence News Agency, where it was revealed by the Corporate Affairs Commission that Seyi is officially a business associate of Chagoury, the former Vice President said it was not surprising that the Chagoury Group had become the biggest beneficiary of the Tinubu largesse.
He said, “Thanks to quality reporting by Africa Intelligence, our suspicions have been confirmed that Chagoury and Tinubu are indeed business partners, and it has been formalised with Seyi on the board of one of Chagoury’s firms.”
He added that Tinubu awarded the Lagos-Calabar Highway contract without due process and it was obvious that contract award was done in a hurry purely because of the business relationship between Tinubu and Gilbert Chagoury.
“To add insult to injury, this project that is being done in excess of $13 billion was awarded without competitive bidding. From all indications, the so-called Badagry-Sokoto highway would be awarded in a similar fashion at an enormous cost to taxpayers purely because Tinubu has put his personal interest ahead of the Nigerian people.”
But in a press statement yesterday, Bayo Onanuga who is Tinubu’s Adviser on Information & Strategy, said Atiku was being hypocritical.
“We found it strange that Alhaji Atiku could accuse President Tinubu of a conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway to Hitech Construction Company, which he claimed is owned by the Chagoury family because the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu, sits on the board of CDK, a tiles manufacturing company, based in Sagamu, Ogun State.
“Nigerians should, by now, be well accustomed to Atiku’s hypocrisy on many national issues. Is it not amusing that the former Vice President, a man who openly said he formed Intels Nigeria with an Italian businessman when he was serving in the Nigeria Customs Service, a clear breach of extant public service regulations, is now the one accusing someone else of conflict of interest?
When he was Vice President of Nigeria between 1999-2007, he maintained his business links with Intels that won major port concession deals.
Was this not an abuse of office, a flagrant violation of his oath, that a company where he was a co-owner won major government contracts and concessions when he was vice president?
Seyi joined the Board of Directors of CDK in 2018, more than six years ago. He is representing the interest of an investor company, in which he has interest. He is not a board member because his father is a friend of the Chagourys.
“Information about owners and shareholders of CDK is a matter of public record that can be openly accessed from the website of the Corporate Affairs Commission and CDK’s. Atiku and his proxy did not need a little-known journal to recycle open-source information to make a fallacious argument. The Chairman of CDK and the highest shareholder of the company is General TY Danjuma (rtd). The Chagourys are minority shareholders in the company, and only one member of the clan is on its five-man board.
“We wonder how Seyi’s membership of the board of CDK conflicts with Hitech Construction Company’s work on Lagos-Calabar Coastal superhighway.”
Tinubu and Atiku