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A retired civil servant in Lagos State, Mr Segun Alabi, has faulted claims by former Communication Minister under late General Sani Abacha, Major General Tajudeen Olarewaju that the land on which the popular Oriental Hotels, Lekki presently stands belonged to Kembu Company.

Former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had in a television documentary said that  the land on which Oriental Hotels stands was full of garbage before he transformed it into what it is today. The former Communications Minister however disputed Tinubu’s claim saying the land in question wasn’t full of garbage and was in fact owned by Kembu Company.

In his reaction, Mr Alabi said, “contrary to Olarenwaju’s claims, inhabitants of that area up till early 2000s would indeed attest that the entire coastal line (stretching from Ozumba Mbadiwe through the Civic Centre/Boat Club, through the front of the present Mobil Office, to the Oriental Hotel, further down the Lekki- Epe corridor) was all refuse dump-site. In fact, there was even a very dirty fish market exactly opposite Mobil office at the time.

“It was the late Mike Akhigbe as military governor of Lagos that originally allocated the land on which Oriental Hotel stands to the Chinese-owned Wempco Group in 1987  — 12 long years before Tinubu dreamt of becoming governor.

“However, Wempco could not develop because of the obvious unviability of that shoreline until Tinubu came and gave a 2-year ultimatum to all allottees of the shoreline to develop or forfeit. The order by the Tinubu administration was after Lagos won the planning regulation case against the Federal Government at the Supreme Court.

“That was when the Chinese owners of Oriental Hotel started to build and others too began to develop.

Contrary to widespread beer-parlour rumour and silly insinuations in some quarters, Asiwaju doesn’t own one kobo share in Oriental Hotel. The Hongkong Chinese Tung family that owns the hotel has been operating in Nigeria since the late 1950s and also operated the Golden Crown Chinese restaurant along Ikorodu road since the 1970s till they moved to the present hotel and they also own the Omo Wood in Ijebu Ode and are known to be close family friends of the present Awujale of Ijebu Ode.

“Since the Supreme Court already gave a judgement in favour of Lagos State over this particular shoreline, one would have thought that those in possession of self-allocated Certificates of Occupancy (C of O) over our common patrimony, would show contrition by keeping quiet instead of making bogus claims.