Tinubu Transfers Lucrative Snake Island Port Terminal To Convicted Money-Launderer Gilbert Chagoury For 45 Years
Gilbert Chagoury, Eko Hotel owner and Bola Tinubu’s longtime ally, who was also convicted by a U.S. court of money laundering, has cornered another multimillion-dollar deal in Nigeria through his ITB construction company, which has been contracted to build the Snake Island Port container terminal in Lagos State.
To decongest overloaded terminals in Lagos, the Nigerian maritime company Nigerdock awarded the development of a new shipping terminal to Swiss shipping giant MSC Group under a $1 billion concession agreement spanning 45 years.
While MSC Group will operate the terminal for the duration of the concession, ITB Construction Nigeria Limited and DEME Group have been tapped to build the container terminal, which is expected to be completed by 2028.
A statement by MSC’s head of communications, Giles Read, on Wednesday affirmed that the Swiss company has “finalised an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract with ITB Nigeria Ltd. and DEME Group to develop it (Snake Island).”
The Switzerland-based company said the container terminal will be ready by 2028, implying Mr Chagoury’s ITB company and DEME Group should have finished building the Snake Island port terminal in the next three years.
This is not the first time Mr Chagoury’s company has been awarded such enormous contracts with national significance.
In 2025, despite lacking major experience in seaport construction, ITB Construction Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Chagoury Group, was selected by Nigeria’s Federal Executive Committee to refurbish two major ports, Tin Can and Apapa, in a contract worth N1.1 trillion.
In 2024, Mr Chagoury’s Hi-Tech company was awarded the $11 billion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project to the chagrin of Nigerians.
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Mr Chagoury, despite being a naturalised citizen, wields significant influence in Nigeria, where he is known as a middleman who helped to broker deals between potential foreign investors and the Nigerian government.
He arranged a meeting between Mr Tinubu and DP World’s former CEO Bin Sulayem, who resigned earlier this year over his salacious messages with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in February 2025.
Mr Chagoury, 81, with a corruption-tainted history, was convicted by the U.S. government in 2000 for money laundering.
He owns the Eko Hotel and is a key sponsor of the Eko Atlantic project. He has long maintained no wrongdoing in corruption and terrorism financing charges.
Despite blowback on persons associated with the deceased paedophile, Mr Tinubu has continued to strengthen his alliance with the Lebanese billionaire.
In January, the Nigerian leader conferred the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) on Mr Chagoury, one of the country’s highest national honours.
