Atiku had criticised the Nigerian government for giving the contract for the construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to Hitech Construction Company which he claimed is owned by the Chagoury family.
The Nigerian presidency has attacked former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for criticising the Bola Tinubu government for awarding the construction of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to Hitech, a company associated with the Chagoury family.
Atiku had criticised the Nigerian government for giving the contract for the construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to Hitech Construction Company which he claimed is owned by the Chagoury family.
Atiku had said the President's son, Seyi Tinubu, was a board member.
The Presidency in a statement issued on Monday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said that Atiku as the Vice President between 1999-2007, maintained his business links with Intels that won major port concession deals.
Onanuga also said that Atiku as Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation while in power, approved sales of over 145 state-owned enterprises to his known friends and associates, adding that the former Vice President openly said during his 2023 campaign for the presidential election that he would do the same, if elected.
Onanuga said that “We found it strange that Alhaji Atiku could accuse President Tinubu of conflict of interest in the award of Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway to Hitech Construction Company which he claimed is owned by 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?
“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.”
He further stated that “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.”
The presidential aide said that 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.
He said “Atiku and his proxy did not need a little-known journal to recycle open-source information to make a fallacious argument.”
He stressed that “The Chairman of CDK and the highest shareholder of the company is respected General TY Danjuma (rtd). The Chagouris 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.
“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.
“It is important to remind Alhaji Atiku that infrastructural projects such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway are used to galvanise the economy. In the US, President Joe Biden has used his $2trillion bi-partisan infrastructure deal to revamp decaying American infrastructure and inject life into the US economy.”
According to him, “How can an elder-statesman be waging a campaign of calumny against the economic fortunes and prosperity of a country he wishes to govern or trying to scuttle a project that will bring prosperity to nine coastal states and the nation in general?
“That Nigeria’s economy is being reclassified by the IMF as the fourth largest in Africa is stale news. This happened because of the devaluation of the Naira and President Tinubu’s determined effort to set the economy on the path of sustainable growth.
“Under the progressive, bold, inventive, and innovative leadership of President Tinubu, Nigeria will bounce back to where it rightfully belongs as Africa’s largest market and biggest economy.
“The Tinubu administration targets a $1trillion economy in the next few years, with audacious economic programmes and critical infrastructure projects in key sectors.
“With revenue rising in trillions and the creation of the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Fund, which is poised to raise over N20trillion this year alone, we have no doubt that the $1trillion economy is realisable.”