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Nigeria: Abacha Henchmen, Chagourys Take Over Lagos
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This Day (Lagos)
20 July 2008
Posted to the web 21 July 2008
Olawale Olaleye
Lagos
The Chagoury family, best known for its business relationship with the late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, is now the favoured contractors to the Lagos State government, THISDAY can report today.
The Lebanese, operating through Hitech Construction Company Limited, are currently handling construction contracts running into billions of naira in the state.
THISDAY learnt that former governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu who made his name as an anti-Abacha activist, is promoting their business in Lagos State.
The ex-governor, who travelled to Beirut, Lebanon, a fortnight ago in a Chagoury-owned chartered Falcon jet to seal more deals with the family, is also said to own beneficial interest in Hitech Construction Company Limited formerly known as C & C (Chagoury & Chagoury) Construction.
Hitech, it would be recalled, was the company whose earth-moving equipment criminally broke a petroleum product pipeline in Ijegun, Lagos State, on May 15, 2008, leading to the tragic deaths of scores of people, including school children, who were burnt to ashes.
Instead of launching a criminal investigation, the Lagos State government is involved in a cover-up of mass murder shifting blames to the local government.
Civil construction experts blamed the incident on the company, without proper mapping of the area before embarking on the job.
Hitech, whose jobs include road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance as well as bridge construction, got most of the construction jobs in Alimosho and Lagos Island Local Government Areas.
Among the jobs being handled by Hitech in Alimosho Local Government Area are the Abule-Egba-Ekoro-Meran road, Old Ota road, Agodo road, Community road, Association road, Shasha-Ejigbo road and Ijegun-Isheri road.
In Lagos Island, the projects awarded to Hitech include various road construction and shoreline protection jobs such as the Bar Beach enhancement and shoreline stabilisation project, which was awarded through the Lagos Waterfront Ministry and its Tourism Development counterpart.
In addition, the multi-billion naira Ozumba Mbadiwe Lagos-Lekki Expressway project is being managed through the LCC (Lagos Concession Company), where again Tinubu's men hold beneficial interests.
The Lagos State government had been unable to act against Hitech because its relationship with Tinubu, who was being treated in Beirut by the Chagourys while families were mourning their loss.
The cost of projects in Lagos are said to be "closely guarded secrets" - a development opposition politicians regard as a way of covering up the hyper-inflation of contracts which has been the practice since 1999.
The costs of major roads constructed in Lagos during this period, notably Kudirat Abiola Way, Lawanson-Yaba Road, Onikan Road and Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, have never been disclosed to the public.
The late Funso Williams, who was murdered before the last governorship election in the state, had been at the forefront of the campaign for full disclosure of the costs of contracts in the state, but this tradition seems to have continued.
Williams was the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2003 election in Lagos State and was the favourite to clinch the party's ticket again in 2007 before he was assassinated.
The Chagoury family was a key partner of Abacha when he was head of state. Its patriarch, René Chagoury, moved to Nigeria from Miziara, a village in north Lebanon, in the 1930s.
Gilbert, "currently wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)", the first of René's five sons, had been a friend to Abacha in the 1970s, but after Abacha took power in 1993, he became a familiar figure at the presidential villa. The family's businesses practically grew in leaps and bounds overnight.
Gilbert was treated like a head of state when Abacha was in power, flying into Abuja in private jets and being driven off from the tarmac without customs, immigration and security formalities, on his way to Aso Rock.
The Chagourys got major chunks of business, including contracts to buy the country's crude oil, construction of high-rise government buildings and supply of all Nigeria's fertiliser needs.
The family's flagship concern, Chagoury & Chagoury, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of plum construction contracts in Abuja.
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The firm built secretariats for government ministries and the headquarters of the State Security Service (SSS).
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