Presidency: Lagos-Calabar highway contract not over Tinubu’s son membership of CDK

The Presidency says President Bola Tinubu’s son, Seyi Tinubu’s membership of the board of CDK Integrated Industries doesn’t conflict with Hitech Construction Company’s work on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, had said the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is being done because of the business relationship between Tinubu and Gilbert Chagoury, the owner of Hitech, the contractor awarded the contract for the expressway.

Atiku, in a statement on Sunday, May 5, 2024, said the project was awarded in contravention of the procurement laws, noting that Tinubu’s son is a director on the board of CDK, a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group.

Reacting via a statement on Monday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said Seyi joined the board of directors of CDK in 2018, noting that the president’s son is representing the interest of the company in which he has an interest.

Onanuga said: “It is important to state clearly that Seyi Tinubu is a 38-year-old adult who has a right to do business and pursue his business interests in Nigeria and anywhere in the world within the limits of the law. The fact that his father is now the President of Nigeria does not disqualify Seyi from pursuing legitimate business interests.

“For the records, 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.

Atiku: FG awarded Lagos-Calabar highway to Tinubu’s ally

“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 respected 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.”

The presidential spokesman stated that it was strange that Atiku accused President Tinubu of a conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway to Hitech, adding that the former Vice President maintained his business links with Intels Nigeria that was awarded government contracts during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

He said: “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?

Atiku: N15.3trn Lagos-Calabar project, highway to fraud

“As Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, he approved sales of over 145 State-owned enterprises to his known friends and associates and openly said during his failed campaign for the presidency last year that he would do the same if elected.

“Alhaji Atiku has been waging an unrelenting war against this all-important and transformative project for no justifiable reasons other than bad politics. Atiku knows that its grand success and other projects to be unfurled, such as the Badagry-Sokoto superhighway, will be a major boost for President Tinubu and finally upend his perennial presidential ambition.

“If not blinded by political ill-will, Alhaji Atiku knows that the right thing for him to do is to applaud President Tinubu for the ambitious and audacious Lagos-Calabar Highway, which was authorised by the Federal Executive Council.”

The Star