In a startling revelation, investigative journalist and writer, David Hundeyin, has voiced serious apprehensions regarding the recent awarding of the Coastal Road Project to Hitech Construction, a company owned by Gilbert Chagoury, a convicted criminal with ties to heroin trafficking, under the leadership of Bola Tinubu. The project’s extravagant cost and dubious timeline have ignited controversy within the Nigerian public sphere.
Hundeyin has shed light on the swift progression from the project’s awarding to the initiation of property destruction along the proposed right of way, dubbing it potentially the quickest contract mobilization in Nigerian road construction history. Furthermore, he has underscored Hitech Construction’s dismal track record, suggesting it appears ill-prepared to handle such a massive undertaking.
In a series of tweets on Thursday, David Hundeyin stated, “A road project was awarded for a fanciful figure plucked out of the sky (N15 trn). From awarding to actually destroying property along the proposed right of way took literally a few weeks – this must have been the quickest contract to mobilisation turnaround in Nigerian Road construction history.”
The journalist has delved deeper into the complex web of connections between Chagoury, Tinubu, and the project itself. Notably, the proposed road runs adjacent to Eko Atlantic, a megaproject jointly owned by Chagoury and Tinubu. Hundeyin suggests that completing this portion of the road could potentially bolster Eko Atlantic’s viability, thereby financially benefiting the two individuals.
“The contract was awarded to Hitech Construction, a company owned by Gilbert Chagoury, a convicted criminal and former Abacha money launderer whose family raised their startup capital from heroin trafficking More on him later.
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“The contract was awarded to them by a government led by Bola Tinubu, an indicted heroin trafficker whose American criminal records were partially released by the FBI following FOIA litigation I took part in. More on that later too.
“Hitech Construction has zero track record to suggest any capacity to deliver a 700KM road project (it couldn’t even handle the 36KM Lekki-Epe Expressway, which is STILL unfinished 13 years after construction began).
“The Nigerian government doesn’t actually have N15 trn lying around anywhere. This project has been set up to fail from Day 1. However, the portion of the project that was apparently important enough to demolish Landmark Centre for, just happens to lie next to Eko Atlantic, a white elephant megaproject that has stalled for several years. It just so happens that Eko Atlantic is jointly owned by Gilbert Chagoury and Bola Tinubu, via the usual bullshit layers of corporate separation. Constructing this portion of the proposed road could, in theory, make Eko Atlantic more viable, which would create incredible financial returns for the 2 criminals involved.
“It also happens that Eko Atlantic was – in an obscure and counterintuitive manner – chosen to host the new US consulate a few years ago. This definitely had nothing to do with the fact that Gilbert Chagoury is a longtime donor to the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party.
“The existence of this financial relationship – which was so strong that Bill Clinton even showed up in person for a construction landmark event at Eko Atlantic – definitely did not mean that his wife – former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – influenced the State Department’s decision to financially favour one of their donors. That certainly did not happen. We can also be sure that whatever grossly inflated contract mobilisation sum that Bola pays to Gilbert, will definitely be used entirely to pay for road construction, and not for another purpose such as making a sizeable political donation to the Democratic Party in this election year, after the State Department intervened to prevent the full and unredacted release of Bola Tinubu’s 2,500-page FBI criminal file just a few months ago.
“We are definitely not witnessing a transaction put together by a massive transnational state corruption enterprise that exists at the junction of local and international politics, foreign intelligence, and organised crime. That is definitely not what we are witnessing in real time, and anyone who even makes such a suggestion is a conspiracy theorist who is liable to tragically commit suicide by shooting himself in the head 3 times,” he said.”
In response to David Hundeyin’s concerns and those already expressed by the likes of Peter Obi, the spotlight will remain firmly fixed on the Coastal Road Project. Further investigations and public scrutiny are expected to continue in the days to come.