A major allegation of sleaze against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is rife within the upper crust of the Nigerian elite circle
The alleged monumental scandal claims that Tinubu awarded to himself the biggest road construction contract in Africa through a proxy.
The road in question is believed to be the trillion naira Lagos to Calabar Coastal road.Those privy to what’s going on, claim that notable business mogul Gilbert Chargoury fronts for Tinubu. Chargoury’s speciality is to front for the man in power.The case of the Coastal Road is simply that of Tinubu awarding the most expensive road contract in Africa to himself.
It was further alleged that every active Chargoury business in Nigeria today is Tinubu’s business being fronted by Gilbert Chargoury. It recalled that when Tinubu was governor, and Federal government was doing privatisation, which entailed selling off government businesses and assets to the private sector, Tinubu used the Chargourys to buy Eko Hotel, belonging to Lagos State at that time. Eko Hotel is easily Nigeria’s biggest hotel complex today. It has more hotel rooms than any other hotel in Nigeria, plus multiple restaurants, event centres, office blocks, luxury apartment blocks, etc.
In fact, Eko Hotel owns one side of a street in VI, from Ajose Adeogun Roundabout to the point where Coastal Road begins by Bar Beach. They leased land to Total to build their headquarters within the premises. They have added two high-rise blocks to the original hotel, which used to be the main block and Kuramo Lodge. Today, you now have Eko Signature, which charges a premium, and Eko Suites, which is strictly residential.
No other hotel in Nigeria has that. They have built a high-rise office block at the Ajose Adeogu end of the property, just before the Total block. And they have added a high-rise luxury apartment block right next to Coastal Road to complete an ecosystem of luxury hospitality and office.
When Chargoury was fronting for Abacha, Abacha licensed only one GSM company called Celia, at a fee of $20m. If Abacha had lived, everything you see today as MTN, Glo, Airtel, and 9Mobile would have been Celia, an Abacha business fronted by the Chargourys. Obasanjo cancelled that $20m license and opened the business for competitive bidding. In the end, 4 licenses were sold for $285m each, earning Nigeria over $ 1 billion from license fees alone, instead of $20 million.
