The Presidency has again reacted to the misgivings the former Vice-president Alhaji Abubaka Atiku has over President Bola Tinubu's Son Seyi Tinubu as a director of CDK, Seyi is a 38year man and has all right to be in business.
All this ill-fighting was generated when the President Tinubu's administration embarked on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Construction.
The Presidency in it's press release by Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy said the Chagoury's are minority shareholder of the company chaired by respected General TY Danjuma (rtd).
The State House statement further references Atiku who was Vice-president in 1999-2007 maintained his business interest with Intels, a company he owns the majority shares.
Excerpt of the State House statement says:
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 represen2023ting 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.
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 $2 trillion bi-partisan infrastructure deal to revamp decaying American infrastructure and inject life into the US economy.
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?
The presidency of President Bola Tinubu has kicked against Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for putting out false information on the Tinubu's administration Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and accused Atiku for developing a reputation for distorting and manipulating facts for his self-serving objective of discrediting the current administration.
Former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Candidate in the 2023 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, is fast developing a reputation for distorting and manipulating facts for his self-serving objective of discrediting the current administration.
In his latest press statement, the defeated PDP presidential candidate made wild claims on a number of issues that need to be corrected so that the public will not be misled into accepting fallacies as the truth.
The President Bola Tinubu-led administration believes that every true and patriotic Nigerian, regardless of political differences, should work to promote the unity and economic well-being of the country and not delegitimise genuine efforts of the Federal Government to encourage local and foreign investments into the economy.
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.
