The presidency on Monday chided former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his condemnation of the manner in which the contract for the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway was awarded. Bayo Onanuga, President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, said that Atiku has a penchant for distorting facts....CONTINUE READING THE ARTICLE FROM THE SOURCE
Describing Atiku’s claims as “wild,” Onanuga said the president has chosen to response lest members of the public are misled.
“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,” Onanuga said
While not disputing Atiku’s claim, Onanuga said Atiku is an hypocrite saying “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?”
He added that 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?”
Confirming that Seyi Tinubu is on the board on CDK, Onanuga said the president’s son is an adult who has right to engage in legitimate businesses.
He 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. 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.”
