According to Punch, a faction of the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has ignited a political storm by calling for the immediate impeachment of President Bola Tinubu over what it deems a glaring conflict of interest in the controversial Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project. The group is accusing Tinubu of abusing his office to award a multibillion-naira contract to a close associate without due process.
The group’s leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan, lambasted the president’s open admission during the inauguration of the highway’s first phase that the contractor, Gilbert Chagoury—whose company, Hitech Construction, is handling the project—is his long-time associate. Tinubu’s exact words, describing Chagoury as his “partner in daring” who helped him “tame the Atlantic,” have sparked intense backlash, with critics saying the president effectively confessed to a conflict of interest in a major federal infrastructure deal.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, touted as a transformative project, is being constructed by Hitech, a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group—the same conglomerate behind the Eko Atlantic City development. Critics say the highway appears to prioritize access to the elite Eko Atlantic real estate zone, which is widely believed to have ties to the president and his allies.
According to Olaitan, the absence of a competitive bidding process for the project undermines transparency and public trust. He said it is outrageous for the president to hand a massive national infrastructure contract to a personal associate, suggesting that it amounts to awarding a federal project to himself. He also questioned the commissioning of only a 30-kilometre section—roughly 4 percent of the proposed length—implying the rest of the project may be abandoned once the stretch leading to the Atlantic City is completed.
“All President Tinubu is doing is building a road to his own Atlantic City,” Olaitan said. “The National Assembly must act decisively and begin impeachment proceedings if they truly represent the Nigerian people and are not complicit in this abuse of office.
The Afenifere faction argues that the project’s lack of transparency, Tinubu’s personal interest in its beneficiaries, and the strategic alignment of the road toward private interests all point to a breach of public trust. They insist that Tinubu’s statement is an open admission of self-dealing.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress has dismissed the impeachment demand as baseless and politically motivated, calling it “a joke taken too far.” They described the highway project as a monumental step for national development and insisted that the president has done nothing wrong.
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