A faction of the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has called on the National Assembly to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Bola Tinubu, citing a conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway contract.
The group’s leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan, expressed concern during an interview with Saturday PUNCH, following President Tinubu’s open acknowledgment of his ties to Gilbert Chagoury, the billionaire behind Hitech Construction Company—the firm handling the multi-billion naira highway project.
Oba Olaitan criticised Tinubu’s statement at the recent inauguration of the 30-kilometre Phase 1, Section 1 of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, where the President described Chagoury as his “partner in daring.”
“To the contractors and my partner in daring, it was tough for us… We came together to tame the Atlantic,” Tinubu had said during the ceremony.
Afenifere’s Olaitan said such a declaration raises serious ethical questions about transparency and conflict of interest in the contract award process. “A sitting President publicly admitting a personal relationship with a major contractor on a government project of this magnitude undermines the principles of accountability,” he noted.
The group is demanding that lawmakers thoroughly investigate the contract’s approval process and determine whether President Tinubu breached the constitutional requirement for impartiality in the handling of public contracts.
