The Nigerian government has approved the sum of $2.59billion for the development of the Badagry Deep Seaport project under a Private-Public Partnership. The project is being promoted by a company, Badagry Port Development Limited. However, checks by SaharaReporters revealed that Badagry Port Development Limited, the promoter of the project, is owned by the Adewale Tinubu and Olakunle Tinubu. Adewale is the nephew of Bola Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State, and the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress. According to the Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Sambo, under a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer delivery system, the port will be operated by the private sector for 45 years after which it will be reverted to the government. Approved on August 3, the minister said the project would generate $53.6bn in revenue and create about 250,000 jobs; while making Nigeria a maritime hub in West Africa. The minister had said, “I presented a memo today at council with respect to the development of the Badagry Deep Seaport under the public-private partnership arrangement, where the private sector will inject money for the development of the port and at the end of the concessionary period, the port reverts to the Federal Government of Nigeria through the Nigerian Ports Authority. “The project cost as contained and approved in council based on the final business case as approved by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission in line with extant laws stood at $2.59bn. It has to be developed in four phases with milestones and a concessional period of 45 years. Reversion is, like I said, to the Federal Government of Nigeria. “This is to further the government’s goal of making Nigeria the maritime hub of the West and Central Africa sub-region. This project, it may interest you to know, will also generate total revenue of over $53.6bn over the concession period. It will create about one quarter million jobs and also attract foreign direct investments to the country and help in improving Nigeria’s economy in general and the wellbeing of Nigerians.” The company with registration number 1068718 with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) of Nigeria was registered October 2, 2012. Meanwhile, a source told SaharaReporters that the promoter of the project haD another hidden agenda. He described it as a move to forcefully take over their land and forced displacement of the people of Badagry West. “In recent time there has been a lot of apprehension in 13 communities in Badagry West, with regards to the proposed Badagry Deep Sea Port project which was first brought up around 2012/13,” he told SaharaReporters. “The project is understood to be a public/private partnership (developmental) arrangement to establish a deep seaport, (which covers an expanse of a rather uninhabited area of Badagry coastline) that will ease the congestion on Apapa/Tin Can – a development which all the people of Badagry West welcomed and accepted whole heartedly. “Along the lines, they kept expanding and changing details of the coverage area. The initial ask was 228,083 hectares of land, which surprisingly is bigger than the most familiar ports around the world and the number keeps changing every time in a very opaque arrangement. “Also, 13 actively inhabited communities are currently being asked to vacate their ancestral homes without any concrete arrangement as to relocation or compensation, neither has there been any direct consultation or meetings between these private business partners and the landowners, talk less of any architectural drawing of the actual proposed project, detailing the coverage area. “This is an agenda for forced displacement and a formula for making the landowners IDPs on their ancestral land by strangers conducting their private business with a good measure of greed. Only a portion of the proposed land coverage is needed for the project while the remaining huge expanse has already been shared on paper by the promoters of the project and Lagos state officials. This is not surprising though, as it has been their usual style of land grabbing from the poor and uniformed people of Lagos state (especially rural dwellers). “The project is being aggressively promoted by a company called Badagry Port Development Limited owned entirely by the Tinubu. Badagry Port Development Limited had told a huge lie to their partners, as contained in their executive summary, claiming that there are no land dispute issues on the proposed area. “Apparently, this lie was told as they know these partners of international repute will not want to soil their image with the land grabbing endeavour being pushed by Tinubu and cronies. A short description of the consortium partner structure is provided below: “Quinn Mcgrath Marine & Environmental Services Limited (QMMESL) is the Maritime Investment subsidiary of the Quinn Mcgrath Group. QMMESL has expertise in the management and operations of multimillion dollar maritime projects across several industry segments. “Arise Ports & Logistics (Arise P&L), a UK-based company that manages Arise’s ports and logistics operations in Africa; the platform is owned by three major shareholders: A.P. Møller Capital (APMC – 43%): an affiliate of AP Møller Holding, founded in 2017, established to manage stand-alone funds focusing on infrastructure growth markets. “Olam International Limited (Olam – 31%): a worldwide leader in the food and agribulk segment, and the biggest milling company in Nigeria. Africa Finance Corporation (AFC – 26%): is a pan-African Multilateral Development Financial Institution, providing financial support to large-scale infrastructure projects on the continent. To date, the AFC has invested more than US$6.6billion in projects across 30 African countries. “Access Bank is a Nigerian multinational commercial bank, owned by Access Bank Group. Access Bank is presently one of the five largest banks in Nigeria. “Contrary to the lie told their partners, one of the affected communities has taken them to court and the matter is still in court as we speak. To this end, there have been several subtle and direct threats to the Baale and people of this community to yield their ancestral land. Sometimes these threats come from the king of Apa in Badagry. “Having a sound understanding of how Denmark respects the rule of law, and how it is one of the least corrupt nations of the world, can one then imagine that AP Moller one of the foremost private companies representing the image of Denmark will be involved in this act of corruption and land grabbing targeted at forced displacement of people? A thorough investigative endeavour may help expose some lies in this corrupt arrangement. “It is rather unfortunate, that many Badagry indigenes (including the traditional rulers) are hugely misinformed and unaware of the danger of letting Tinubu and his cronies destroy their heritage and steal their land, therefore the need to expose what is going on before these indigenes become strangers on their own land. There is need to cry out and help the helpless.”