PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has awarded a contract for the renovation of Lagos ports to a company owned by his long-time friend and confidant, who is also a Lebanese-Nigerian, Mr Gilbert Chagoury.

According to Africa Intelligence, which specialises in the publication of exclusive information on the continent, the company, known as ITB Nigeria, has zero experience in port-related services.

“Despite the group’s lack of experience in the port sector, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who had the final say on the matter, decided to once again place his trust in his ‘confidant,’ the Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury,” the report said.

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Africa Intelligence said there had been no doubt in recent weeks in Lagos about which firm would win the $700 million contract to renovate the city’s two main ports, Tin Can and Apapa.  It noted that the Nigerian government, in a meeting in early February with the Federal Executive Council (FEC), chose Chagoury Group, and its subsidiary, ITB Nigeria, headed by Mr Ramzi Chidiac. 

Africa Intelligence said ITB Nigeria did not respond to its request for comment.

Mr Tinubu’s friend’s company, Hitech Construction Company Limited, is handling the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, which was awarded at the cost of $13 billion.

There are allegations that Mr Tinubu”s government is nepotisic and cryonistic, with his appointees mostly from Lagos and contracts favouring his friends. His opponent in the 2023 election, Mr Atiku Abubakar, was often accused by Mr Tinubu’s political party of wanting to sell government poperties to his friends should be become president. However, it seems that Mr Tinubu is the one showing why his friends and political associates should benefit most from his government – at the expense of the majority of Nigerians.

Seyi Tinubu and Chagoury’s unholy alliance

Economy Post had earlier reported that President Tinubu’s son, Oluwaseyi, owned an offshore company with the son of a tycoon who recently received the contract to build a 700-kilometer highway spanning the West African country’s coast, according to leaked corporate documents.

The contract was awarded without any public bidding process, and a minister told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (OCCRP) last year that the government was facing a legal challenge.

In May 2024, the Nigerian government announced the first phase of the Lagos-Calabar Highway by Hitech Construction Company Ltd., which is a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by Chagoury brothers, Ronald and Gilbert. 

Hitech Construction has been awarded the contract for the entire project, which will cost an estimated $13 billion, with funding to be secured as it progresses.

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Activists and opposition politicians lambasted the deal, arguing that it violated regulations because it was not done through a public tender. Minister of Works Mr David Umahi noted the government was fighting a legal battle in relation to the highway at that time.

“The entire process is before the court,” he said in a text message to OCCRP.

Critics also highlighted the longstanding business dealings and friendship between the Chagoury brothers and President Bola Tinubu, but Mr Umahi said the relationship played no role in the construction contract.

“The Lagos Calabar Coastal Highway procurement followed due process and the president hasn’t any hand in the award or execution,” he said.

The association between Tinubu and the Chagoury brothers is well known to Nigerians.

The president’s son, Mr Oluwaseyi Tinubu, was a majority shareholder in an offshore company, BVI, alongside Ronald Chagoury Jr, who shares a name with his father. The firm was incorporated eight years ago in the British Virgin Islands.

The BVI offers corporate anonymity, but the involvement of the two men was revealed in company documents leaked to the OCCRP. The current ownership of the BVI firm is unknown.

Mr Oluwaseyi Tinubu and Mr Ronald Chagoury Jr did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the Chagoury Group.

Mr Ayotunde Abiodun of SBM Intelligence, a Nigeria-based risk consultancy firm, said public officials and their close relatives were expected to avoid conflicts of interest in order to uphold public trust.

He added that the business and personal relationships between the Tinubu and Chagoury families fuelled suspicion among Nigerians due to “systemic corruption and pervasive lack of accountability within the country’s governance.”

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Nigeria in 2023 ranked 145 out of 180 countries on an annual index measuring perceptions of corruption, which is published by the advocacy group Transparency International. A country perceived to have the lowest corruption level is ranked at 1.

Graft has long plagued Nigeria, and Gilbert Chagoury was convicted in Switzerland in 2000 of laundering money for the country’s former military dictator, late Sani Abacha. 

The relationship between Nigeria’s current president and the Chagoury brothers goes back to at least 2007 when Tinubu was governor of Lagos State. That year, Tinubu’s administration granted the Chagoury Group title to 10 million square meters of land on the seashore of the country’s commercial capital, Lagos.

Hitech Construction is now building Eko Atlantic City on that land, which is held by South Energyx, a Chagoury Group subsidiary where the younger Ronald serves as vice-chairman. The highway begins at Eko Atlantic City, running south down the coast to Calabar, in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

In February 2024, the government approved N1 trillion (about $670 million depending on currency fluctuations at that time) in funding for Hitech to build the first 47 kilometers of road. The government plans to provide up to 30 percent of the funding for the entire project, Umahi said, with Hitech expected to raise the rest.

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President Tinubu said the highway would boost Nigeria’s economy and “provide 30 million people with improved access to production and marketing centers.”

In a May statement, he also “applauded” the Chagoury brothers “for being worthy stakeholders and for believing in the future of Nigeria.”