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Ogun State signed memorandums of understanding with the Dubai port operator DP World on Thursday, Sept. 24, covering a deep sea port and a marine economic zone that the government projects will attract more than $7 billion and create at least 50,000 jobs.
Kayode Akinmade, media aide to the Ogun governor, announced the signings. The two projects are the Gateway Deep Sea Port and the Ogun State Blue Marine Special Economic Zone, and President Bola Tinubu said they would ease congestion at the Lagos ports and cut the delays that cost importers money.
"We are doing more than signing agreements; we are laying the foundation for a new chapter in Nigeria's development," Tinubu said.
What was signed is not a contract. A memorandum of understanding records an intention to work together and leaves the commercial terms, the financing and the construction timetable still to be negotiated.
The introduction came from Gilbert Chagoury.
The Nigerian-Lebanese businessman arranged a meeting on Feb. 26, 2025 between DP World's then chief executive Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Tinubu and Adegboyega Oyetola, Nigeria's minister of marine and blue economy, at which the Ogun port plans were set out, according to Peoples Gazette.
DP World has had a difficult year since. Bin Sulayem resigned as chief executive in February after his name appeared in files released from the Jeffrey Epstein case. British International Investment, Britain's development finance institution, and Canada's La Caisse both cut ties with the company and asked it to explain the relationship and take action.
Nigeria kept going. While foreign institutions were stepping back, Ogun State proceeded to Thursday's signing.
Chagoury is 79 and has been close to Tinubu since Tinubu governed Lagos. His group built Eko Atlantic, the land reclamation and property development off Victoria Island, and owns the Eko Hotels complex. Tinubu conferred Nigeria's second-highest national honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger, on him in January.
He also carries a criminal record. Chagoury was convicted in Switzerland in 2000 over funds connected to the government of Sani Abacha, receiving a suspended sentence, and he later paid $1.8 million in fines to United States authorities after being barred from entering the country.
His companies have taken several of the largest contracts Tinubu's government has awarded. Hi-Tech Construction, part of the Chagoury Group, holds the Lagos to Calabar coastal highway contract, costed at $11 billion, awarded in 2024. ITB Construction Nigeria, another subsidiary, was awarded 1.1 trillion naira to refurbish the Tin Can and Apapa ports in Lagos, despite what Peoples Gazette describes as a lack of seaport construction experience.
The Gazette says those awards frequently bypassed competitive bidding. Neither the presidency nor the Chagoury Group has responded publicly to that characterisation.
Nigeria moves the overwhelming majority of its imports through Lagos, where Apapa and Tin Can have been congested for years, with trucks queuing for days on the approach roads. Successive governments have promised alternatives. Ogun State sits directly north of Lagos and has been trying to build a port of its own since the last administration.
Neither DP World nor the Chagoury Group commented on the signing.
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