I Am Not The Owner Of Oriental Hotel, Civic Centre, Says Tinubu

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has denied ownership of Oriental Hotel and Civic Center in Lagos among other properties linked to him in Lagos State.

Eaglesforesight reports that, Tinubu who ruled the state between 1999 and 2007 made this explanation in a documentary, explaining 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”, he stated.

“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’,Tinubu added.

Eaglesforesight further reports that, there have been speculations about the ownership of the Oriental Hotel located along the popular Ozumba Mbadiwe road in Victoria Island,while it is recalled that aftermath of the Lekki shooting in 2020, the hotel was targeted by hoodlums on the ground that the asset belonged to the former Governor of the state.

Oriental Hotel

The event prompted the Executive Director of Western Metal Product Company (WEMCO, owners of the facilities, Taiwo Ali, to issue a statement about ownership of the hotel, adding that the company owns 99 per cent of the shares of the hotels.