IBADAN, Nigeria (VOICE Of NAIJA)- The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has reacted to claims that he owns Oriental Hotel in Lagos State.
Tinubu, in a documentary on his achievements as Lagos State Governor, said he only provided the environment for investors to invest on the Lekki Corridor.
He said neither the hotel nor the Civic Centre belongs to him.
In the excerpt posted on Twitter by Jubril Gawat, a media aide to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, the former governor said the entire Lekki Corridor was a refuse dump that took months to clear.
There have been speculations about the ownership of the Oriental Hotel located along the popular Ozumba Mbadiwe road in Victoria Island.
In the aftermath of the Lekki shooting in 2020, the hotel was targeted by hoodlums on the ground that the asset belonged to Mr Tinubu.
The event prompted the Western Metal Product Company, the owners of the facilities, to issue a statement about ownership of the hotel.
The Executive Director of WEMCO, Taiwo Ali, had disclosed that the WEMCO group owns 99 per cent of the shares of the hotels.
In the course of the violence that occurred in the aftermath of the 2020 ENDSARS protest, some media houses linked to Tinubu were set attacked. They are The Nation newspaper, Television Continental and Max Radio.
Speaking in the documentary, Tinubu, who was governor between 1999 and 2007, said he does not own the Oriental Hotel and other properties linked to him but that his administration invested resources to clear the dumps at the place where the hotel and the civic centre are located.
“I have converted a liability confronting Lagos to an asset of great value. Along Ozumba Mbadiwe, we used to pick dead bodies. People have forgotten truck pushers in those areas. You have the dirties coastline along Ozumba Mbadiwe all through Lekki corridor.
“I brought private investors, hospitality— they created the boat club, the Civic Center that is of great value to many people today—that was a refuse dump. Nobody would easily remember that Oriental Hotel was a refuse dump— a mile of refuse along that corridor.
It took several months of escalating and a great investment for those investors to take the risk. Majority of those assets they claim are mine are not mine.
“I created an economic and recovery path for Lagos. There is no state that can brag of the exponential development that is going on in the Lekki Corridor,” he said.
Tinubu is facing a lot of questions about his source of wealth as well as his health ahead of the commencement of campaign on 28 September in line with INEC timetable and schedule of activities.