Lagos-Calabar highway contract: Presidency responds to Atiku

The Presidency has accused Former vice president Atiku Abubakar of hypocrisy and distortion of facts in the awarding of the contract for the construction of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road.

Atiku had on Sunday, in a sentencecriticized the awarding of the contract for the construction of the highway, insisting that it lacked transparency.

He also said that President Bola Tinubu’s son, Seyi, is on the board of directors of CDK, a subsidiary of Hitech Construction Company, which was awarded the contract for the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway.

Reacting to Atiku’s statement on Monday, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, said the former vice president has earned “a reputation for distorting and manipulating facts for his selfish objective of discrediting the current administration.” ”.

Onanuga also admitted that Seyi is a member of the CDK board of directors, but said there was nothing wrong with him.

“The fact that his father is now president of Nigeria does not disqualify Seyi from pursuing legitimate business interests.

READ ALSO: EDITORIAL: A coastal highway with misplaced priority and abuse of due process

“For the record, Seyi joined the CDK board of directors in 2018, more than six years ago. He represents the interests of an investment company in which he has interests. He is not a member of the board because his father is a friend of the Chagourys. Information about owners and shares,” Onanuga said.

Read the full statement from the Presidency

STATE HOUSE PRESS STATEMENT

THE INCENSE OF ATIKU ABUBAKAR FOR DISTORTING THE FACTS

Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 elections, Atiku Abubakar, is quickly gaining a reputation for distorting and manipulating facts for his selfish goal of discrediting the current administration.

In his latest press release, the defeated PDP presidential candidate made wild claims on a number of issues that need to be corrected so that the public is not misled and accepts the fallacies as truth.

The administration led by President Bola Tinubu believes that every true and patriotic Nigerian, irrespective of political differences, must work to promote the unity and economic well-being of the country and not delegitimize the genuine efforts of the federal government to encourage local and foreign investments. In the economy.

Contrary to what Atiku claims, the Tinubu administration, in its first year, has attracted over $20 billion into the economy. While President Tinubu was in New Delhi, India, for the G20 Summit in August last year, Indian business leaders committed more than $14 billion in new investments. A substantial part of this sum is already in the country.

In an unequivocal vote of confidence in the economic reforms being implemented by the Tinubu administration, foreign investment in the Nigerian stock market has skyrocketed, from N18.12 billion in the first quarter of 2023 to N93.37 billion in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 415%. The last time Nigeria saw such a level of investment was in the first quarter of 2019, when N97.6 billion was invested. The market, since Tinubu came to power, has broken records and created more wealth for investors.

During President Tinubu’s recent trip to the Netherlands, Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced a new investment of $250 million by Dutch companies in Nigeria.

Different sectors of the economy, especially telecommunications, manufacturing, solid minerals, oil and gas, e-commerce and financial technology, are attracting new foreign direct investments from discerning investors who know that Nigeria is a good market to obtain abundant yields.

We found it strange that Atiku could accuse President Tinubu of conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road to Hitech Construction Company which he claims is owned by the Chagoury family because the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu, is part of it. of the board of directors of CDK, a tile manufacturing company, based in Sagamu, Ogun State.

By now, Nigerians should be well accustomed to Atiku’s hypocrisy on many national issues. Isn’t it funny that the former Vice President, a man who openly said that he had formed Intels Nigeria with an Italian businessman while working in the Nigerian Customs Service, a clear violation of existing public service regulations, is now the one to accuse another person’s conflict of interest?

When he was vice president of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007, he maintained business ties with Intel that won major port concession deals.

Was this not an abuse of power, a flagrant violation of his oath, for a company he co-owned to get major government contracts and concessions when he was vice president?

As chairman of the National Privatization Council, he approved the sale of more than 145 state-owned companies to his friends and known associates and openly said during his unsuccessful presidential campaign last year that he would do the same if elected.

It is important to make it clear that Seyi Tinubu is a 38-year-old adult who has the right to do business and pursue his business interests in Nigeria and anywhere in the world within the confines 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 record, Seyi joined CDK’s board of directors in 2018, more than six years ago. He represents the interests of an investment company in which he has interests. He is not a member of the board because his father is a friend of the Chagourys. Information about CDK’s owners and shareholders is a matter of public record that can be openly accessed from the CDK and Corporate Affairs Commission website. Atiku and his proxy didn’t need a little-known magazine to recycle open source information to make a fallacious argument. The chairman of CDK and the company’s largest shareholder is the respected General TY Danjuma (rtd). The Chagourys are minority shareholders in the company and only one member of the clan sits on its five-member board of directors.

We wonder how Seyi’s membership on the CDK board conflicts with Hitech Construction Company’s work on the Lagos-Calabar coastal superhighway.

Alhaji Atiku has been waging a relentless war against this important and transformative project for no other justifiable reason than bad politics. Atiku knows that the huge success of his and other projects to be implemented like the Badagry-Sokoto superhighway will be a big boost for President Tinubu and will ultimately alter his perennial presidential ambition.

If not blinded by political ill will, Atiku knows that the right thing to do is to applaud President Tinubu for the ambitious and bold Lagos-Calabar Expressway, which was authorized by the Federal Executive Council.

It is important to remind Atiku that infrastructure projects like the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway are used to galvanize the economy. In the United States, President Joe Biden has used his $2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal to renew America’s decaying infrastructure and inject life into the American economy.

How can an elder statesman be waging a slander campaign against the economic fortunes and prosperity of a country he wishes to govern or trying to scupper a project that will bring prosperity to nine coastal states and the nation at large?

That Nigeria’s economy is being reclassified by the IMF as the fourth largest in Africa is old news. This happened due to the devaluation of the naira and the determined effort of President Tinubu to put the economy on the path of sustainable growth. Under the progressive, bold, inventive and innovative leadership of President Tinubu, Nigeria will once again occupy the place where it rightfully belongs: the largest market and the largest economy in Africa.

The Tinubu administration is targeting a $1 trillion economy in the coming years, with bold economic programs and critical infrastructure projects in key sectors. With revenues increasing in the trillions and the creation of the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Fund, which is set to raise over N20 trillion this year alone, we have no doubt that the $1 trillion economy is achievable.

Bayo Onanuga

Special Advisor to the President on Information and Strategy

May 6, 2024