The Economist has published a report examining the scale of the Nigerian infrastructure work now overseen by firms controlled by Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire described in the report as a long-time friend of President Bola Tinubu.
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According to the magazine, the portfolio is valued at about $20 billion, a figure that at prevailing rates translates to roughly N27 trillion. For scale, that is comparable to the reported cost of the world’s first offshore airport, built in Japan.
What The Report Says
The magazine reports that the projects include a coastal motorway put at $11 billion, a sea wall, and a waterfront property development valued at $6 billion that the wall is intended to protect. It adds that the group has also been engaged on two port renovations to be funded largely through a loan of about £746 million, roughly $1 billion, guaranteed by the British government, with international lenders including BNP Paribas Fortis of France and KBC of Belgium involved in financing the waterfront district.
The report notes that the conglomerate, founded in 1971 and run by the businessman with his brother, has interests ranging from flour milling to luxury hotels, and that its infrastructure work has expanded during the current administration.
The Procurement Dispute
The magazine reports that the Nigerian government’s position is that the firms win these contracts because they deliver infrastructure competently and efficiently, and that few Nigerian companies can match that capacity. Critics quoted in the report contend that the firms were allowed to bypass proper procurement and environmental rules.
The accountant and opposition politician Funso Doherty is quoted on the coastal motorway saying “There was no competitive bidding. There was not even restricted bidding.”
According to the report, Doherty sued the government and the firm building the road, alleging that it broke ground without the legally mandated environmental impact assessment. The court dismissed the case on the footing that it was not his to bring, a species of dismissal the report says is common enough that few litigants attempt such challenges, and he expects any appeal to take years. The government’s position, as recorded in the report, is that the firm won a selective bidding process and that the road’s environmental impact was assessed before construction began. The businessman and the construction firm did not respond to the magazine’s request for comment.
Cost, Debt And Tax
The magazine situates the contracts within Nigeria’s fiscal position, reporting that the coastal motorway may benefit from special tax concessions, and that in April the legislature approved a loan of about $516 million to fund a cross-country motorway awarded to one of the group’s firms without bidding, with the government saying the firm was selected for its expertise.
On the public finances, the report puts Nigeria’s 2025 fiscal deficit at N19.4 trillion, about $12.8 billion or 4.4 per cent of GDP, and notes the International Monetary Fund’s assessment that the true figure may be higher because about N8.8 trillion, roughly $5.8 billion or 2 per cent of GDP, of public spending appears to have gone unreported. The Finance Minister disputes that assessment.
The Historical Background
The report recalls that in 2000 a Swiss court convicted the businessman in connection with the laundering of stolen Nigerian public funds during the Abacha era. It records that he said he did not know the money he moved had been stolen, that he returned $66 million to Nigeria, and that he paid a fine of one million Swiss francs, about $600,000 at the time. The report also notes that Abubakar Bagudu, now the minister responsible for dispensing public money, paid $163 million to Nigeria in 2003 to settle a case connected to the Abacha-era looting, without any admission of guilt.
The President’s Position
The magazine reports that the President has brushed aside criticism of the relationship, arguing that the sea wall will avert a disaster of greater magnitude than a tsunami, and that in January he conferred Nigeria’s second highest national honour on the businessman. It quotes a remark he made in 2024 to the effect that a friend of that kind allows one to sleep with a still mind.
The Flooding Question
The report opens with flash floods in Lagos last month, in which water is said to have reached car doors and entered homes, disrupting the city for days. While climate change is identified as the principal driver of worsening flooding, the magazine reports that some residents in poorer parts of the city suspect the coastal motorway and the sea wall may be eroding the shoreline and aggravating the effect of floods along the coast, and that information about the impact of either project is difficult for residents to obtain.
What It Means
The legal question raised by the report is not principally about the businessman but about standing. On the magazine’s account, a citizen who sought to test whether a major road project complied with environmental impact requirements was turned away on the ground that the claim was not his to bring. If that is a correct description of the ruling, it goes to a recurring weakness in Nigerian public interest litigation, since a rule that narrows who may sue over a public project can leave the legality of that project effectively untested regardless of its merits.
The procurement question is the second strand. The government’s position, as reported, is not that bidding was dispensed with but that a selective process was used and that expertise justified the selection. The Public Procurement Act permits restricted and single source procurement in defined circumstances, and the burden of justifying resort to those routes rests on the procuring entity. The gap between “no competitive bidding” and “a fair selective process” is therefore a documentary question capable of resolution by disclosure rather than debate.
The third is scale. Projects of this size, financed substantially by debt and in one instance by a loan carrying a foreign sovereign guarantee, will outlast the administration that awarded them. That is the reason the procurement record matters beyond the present political cycle.
Editorial notes: Three points before you publish. First, The Economist is a copyrighted publication and this piece is written as a report on its findings rather than a reproduction of it; keep quotation minimal and link to the original. Second, the framing that the businessman is “set to receive up to N27 trillion, sometimes tax-free,” goes beyond what the report says. The magazine describes a $20 billion portfolio overseen by firms he controls, which is not the same as a sum payable to him, and it says only that the coastal motorway may benefit from tax concessions. I would recommend reflecting that distinction in the headline you select. Third, the naira equivalent depends on the exchange rate you apply, so state the rate and date used, and verify the Japan airport comparison independently before running it as context.
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