GILBERT CHAGOURY, BOLA TINUBU'S FRIEND - "TOSIN ADEOTI

Gilbert Chagoury 

On a hot afternoon in July 2004, Nigerian police officers waited beside a runway in the far northeastern corner of the country. The air shimmered above the tarmac. Somewhere beyond the horizon, a private jet was descending. The man inside it had not been home in years. His name had been spoken in whispers across courtrooms in Europe, inside Swiss banks, in the offices of investigators who believed that if they ever pulled this thread hard enough, an entire decade of theft would unravel.

The jet touched down. Its wheels kissed Nigerian soil. Then, almost immediately, it lifted again. No handcuffs or need for explanations. Someone had tipped him off. Gilbert Chagoury disappeared into the sky.

That image matters because it tells you everything about how power works in Nigeria. Power here does not work as an institution, or even as a constitution, but as a habit. Power here remembers its friends.

Gilbert Chagoury was born in Lagos in 1946 to Lebanese immigrant parents who had arrived decades earlier, chasing trade routes that stretched from the Levant to West Africa. He grew up between cultures, learning early how to move comfortably across accents and rooms where decisions were made quietly. His parents would not allow him school in Nigeria. So, off he went to Lebanon for his education. But return to Nigeria, he did. Once back, he and his younger brother Ronald would build what became the Chagoury Group, a sprawling conglomerate with interests that touched roads, ports, flour, glass, hotels, telecoms, water, real estate, and financing.

By the late 1970s, their construction arm was already winning major contracts. Concrete was their language and proximity their advantage.

Then came General Sani Abacha.

Chagoury liked to say they met by chance on a flight - to Port Harcourt. Abacha, then a young officer, was quiet and imposing. He wore power the way some men wear uniforms, even before they earn them. When Abacha seized power in 1993, Nigeria entered one of its darkest periods. Political opponents were jailed. Civil society was crushed. The regime drew worldwide condemnation in 1995, when activist playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other men who had campaigned against the environmental degradation of the oil-rich Niger Delta were executed for what most observers say were trumped-up murder charges. Billions vanished from the treasury, routed through banks and shell companies under the cover of national security.

Chagoury became indispensable.

He advised Abacha on money and on access. He moved between Abuja, Europe, and Washington with ease. When Abacha’s health began to fail, it was Chagoury who flew in doctors and equipment. He spoke with diplomats who needed signals. When money needed to move quietly, Chagoury was the man.

After Abacha’s sudden death in 1998, the accounts began to surface. Investigators traced funds through Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Jersey. In 2000, a Swiss court convicted Chagoury for laundering money connected to Abacha’s loot. He paid a fine and returned tens of millions of dollars. The conviction was later expunged under Swiss law, but the facts remained. Nigeria’s money had passed through his hands.

Back home, Nuhu Ribadu, then head of the EFCC (Nigeria’s Chief Prosecutor), now President Bola Tinubu’s National Security Adviser, tried to bring him in. It was the second term of President Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian president. The failed arrest at the airstrip became legend. Chagoury stayed away, but his businesses did not. He waited.

Nigeria moved on, or pretended to. Obasanjo gave way to others. New presidents arrived with old habits. Contracts were awarded. Ports expanded. Hotels rose along the Atlantic. Eko Atlantic City emerged from reclaimed land, a glittering promise built on sand and concrete. The Chagoury Group was everywhere.

Then there was Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Tinubu became governor of Lagos State in 1999, at a moment when the state was reinventing itself as Nigeria’s economic engine. Roads mattered. Infrastructure mattered. Mega projects mattered. Tinubu understood something fundamental about Nigerian politics. Power lasts longer when it is profitable to many people.

Chagoury’s companies won major Lagos contracts. The Lekki-Epe Expressway. The airport road. Tinubu encouraged other governors in his political circle to follow suit. Ekiti. Osun. Ogun. Oyo. Ondo. The pattern was familiar. Chagoury had been transformed as a trusted builder. Of course, he was a reliable intermediary. A man who knew how to deliver.

Their friendship moved beyond paperwork. Tinubu attended Chagoury family weddings abroad. Chagoury returned the favour. Their children shared boardrooms — Tinubu’s son, Seyi, and Chagoury’s brother, Ronald, both sit on the board of Loatsad Promomedia Communications Consultancy. When Tinubu travelled to Paris for undisclosed reasons recently, it was Chagoury who helped organise the trip.

By then, Chagoury had rebuilt his global standing. He lived in Paris, close to the Élysée. His Beverly Hills home had once belonged to entertainers and presidents were in the vicinity. He is a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.) Chagoury's contribution to the Louvre in Paris was large enough for the museum to name a gallery for him and his wife. Universities in Lebanon carried plaques engraved with his donations. He is a diplomat for St Lucia, holding a passport that granted him a kind of global invisibility.

In 2018, the United States Department of Justice revealed another chapter. Chagoury admitted to violating U.S. campaign finance laws by funnelling illegal contributions to American political candidates. He paid $1.8 million to resolve the case. Associates paid fines. One congressman was later convicted of lying about the donations. Again, Chagoury accepted responsibility. Again, he moved on.

Nigeria barely blinked.

In 2024, Tinubu, now president, awarded the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project to Hitech Construction, a Chagoury company. Even with initial estimated costs of between $11 billion and $12.5 billion, there was no open bidding. No Senate screening. Homes were demolished. Beaches vanished. Transparency International mocked the contract: “With the cost involved, you can see that it’s an inflated contract that has been given simply because some people believe that they will make money out of it,” said Auwal Rafsanjani, Nigerian head of Transparency International. The government defended the decision with press conferences and talking points.

Through it all, the relationship held.

Power in Nigeria is rarely embarrassed by history. It is reassured by it.

On the morning of January 8, 2026, there were no grand ceremonies broadcast live on television. The honour appeared quietly, almost shyly, slipped into the record on Gilbert Chagoury’s 80th birthday.

It took nearly two weeks before Nigerians noticed.

When they did, the explanation was simple. It was couched as service and contribution. As friendship dressed up as nationhood.

The story of Gilbert Chagoury is not really about one man. It is about how Nigeria treats proximity to power as a virtue that outlives accountability; how familiarity becomes a qualification. How wealth launders reputation more efficiently than any court ever could.

Chagoury did not survive Nigerian politics by accident. He studied it. He adapted. He waited when necessary. He returned when the doors reopened. He understood that in this country, memory fades faster than relationships.

And so, after decades of whispers, convictions, settlements, denials, contracts, weddings, jets, and near arrests, the arc completed itself quietly, without spectacle, without apology

On January 8, 2026, President Bola Tinubu quietly conferred Nigeria’s second-highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).