The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, has called on the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against President Bola Tinubu over alleged conflict of interest in the award of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway contract.

The Afenifere leader, Oba Oladipo Olaitan, expressed disappointment at Tinubu’s recent public declaration that the contractor handling the project, Gilbert Chagoury, was his partner during the inauguration of Kilometer, Phase 1, Section 1 of the coastal highway project.

“All President Tinubu is doing is building a road to his own Atlantic City,” Olaitan said in an interview with PUNCH.

“He openly said the contractor is his partner. That means he awarded a federal contract to himself.”

Olaitan questioned the rationale behind commissioning just a small portion of the highway, suggesting that the government may have no further intention of pursuing the full stretch of the coastal road once the portion leading to Atlantic City is completed.

“Why commission just four per cent of the road? That road leads straight to their private development. If that part is done, they may abandon the rest. This is a clear conflict of interest,” he insisted.

The Afenifere leader called on lawmakers to take action, saying, “The National Assembly must prove that it is not complicit. If they are truly independent, they must act now. We cannot condone this. This is not how to run a democracy. The president has admitted to a breach of public trust.”

“I am calling on the National Assembly to start the impeachment process now if they are a truly independent and vibrant national assembly and if they are not equally complicit. We can’t condone such a thing,” Olaitan added.

SaharaReporters reports that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway contract is being executed by Hitech Construction Company, a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group, which also spearheads the Eko Atlantic City project; an ambitious real estate development built on reclaimed land from the Atlantic Ocean.

President Tinubu, while inaugurating the project last Saturday, praised the Chagoury-led Hitech Construction Company for its work on the road, describing it as a “symbol of courage and commitment”.

“To the contractors and my partner in daring, it was tough for us… We came together to tame the Atlantic,” Tinubu said.

The project, valued at N15 trillion, spans 700 kilometers across nine coastal states, including Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Edo, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Cross River.

SaharaReporters had reported that the project Tinubu awarded to his associate’s Chagoury without any competitive bidding, and the contract was awarded on a single-source basis, contravening the Public Procurement Act and Environmental Impact Assessment Act.

Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State has accused some serving politicians in the National Assembly of sponsoring the attacks in the state.

The governor made the allegation on Friday in an interview on ‘Politics Today’, a programme on Channels Television, saying that it is unacceptable.

Alia, who did not name the politicians, said that an interim report of a judicial panel he set up, indicted many big names.

He, however, vowed to take up the matter as soon as he receives the full report next week.

“It is very, very unsettling because top politicians who are very functional and are in the National Assembly and are in Abuja, are the architects and arrowheads of not just instigating, but harbouring and keeping these people and feeding them in the bushes, and taking care of all their needs and buying all the other gadgets for them.

“This is extremely unacceptable. If they do not love the lives of the people and they’re only fighting for their own position, I think I am serving the interest of the common masses and it is a concern to me, and it is my right to protect it.

“We set up a judicial panel to sort out for us why we kept having attacks from within and from without, and we have received an interim report. Between Tuesday and Wednesday next week, I am going to get a full report from the panel,” he said.

Recall that several persons were on Friday feared dead and many others injured after suspected armed herdsmen launched a fresh attack on the Makurdi–Naka road.

The Makurdi–Naka road is said to have remained under the control of armed Fulani militia groups for weeks, despite repeated assurances of military intervention.

Abia State Governor, Alex Otti has said that his administration is doing everything to ensure that the impact of flood disaster is mitigated in the State.

Otti, who spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting organised by the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, in Umuahia, said that the building of roads, construction of drainages, opening up of blocked gutters, and erosion control are some of the measures being deployed to prevent flood disasters in Abia.

The Governor, represented at the meeting by the Commissioner for Environment, Philemon Ogbonna, said that dissemination of early warning messages to the people was very important in mitigating the devastating impacts of flood incidents in the State.

He charged the participants to cascade the information and knowledge gathered to the citizens down to community levels, saying the meeting was apt following the flood disaster predictions by relevant Federal government agencies.

He further said that the meeting would help in building citizens’ resilience in the event of any flood disaster.

In his speech, the Director General of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Zubaida Umar who was represented by a Director in the agency, Mr Walter Brandon, said that NEMA has developed disaster mitigation strategies, including capacity building of local emergency responders and rainwater harvesters.

In his welcome address, the Executive Secretary of State Emergency Management Agency, Sunny Jackson said the meeting would prepare actions to reduce the impacts of upcoming flood disaster as predicted.