Hitech Construction Company: Ownership, Registry Record and Delivery History

Hitech Construction Company is the contractor on Phase 1, Section 1 of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, and in December 2025 the Federal Ministry of Information announced that a 30 kilometre stretch of that section had been temporarily opened to traffic. That is the firmest piece of delivered work on the public record. Almost everything else an investor would want to establish, starting with which legal entity holds the contract and who owns it, turns out to be documented unevenly, and on one point two arms of the Nigerian federal government describe the contractor differently.

Two entities, one name

A Nigerian company registered as Hitech Construction Company Limited carries RC-113108 and an incorporation date of 24 May 1988, according to B2BHint, a directory that republishes Corporate Affairs Commission records under the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020. The same entry gives a registered address at Plot 1682 Sanusi Fafunwa Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, and share capital of 20 million naira. That entry is an aggregator snapshot, not a CAC search result, and it has not been confirmed against the commission directly.

A separate company, Hitech Construction Africa Limited, is registered in England and Wales with company number 13368913, incorporated on 30 April 2021, with a registered office at Berkeley Square House in London. That record is a statutory filing and can be read in full on the Companies House register.

The naming matters because the Federal Ministry of Information names Hitech Construction Africa Limited as the contractor in its December 2025 announcement, while the Federal Ministry of Finance names Hitech Construction Company Limited in its July 2025 loan statement for the same project. We could not establish from public sources whether the "Africa Limited" name also corresponds to a separate Nigerian registration. That is a question for the commission and for the company, not something a reader should infer either way.

Who owns it

The Chagoury Group states on its own website that it founded Hitech in 1988 and lists the firm within its construction division. Bloomberg, in reporting carried by SWI swissinfo.ch on 22 May 2024, described the coastal highway contractor as "a business owned by tycoon Gilbert Chagoury."

The UK filing is more specific and more verifiable. Companies House lists two people with significant control of Hitech Construction Africa Limited, both notified on 30 April 2021: Ronald Chagoury, British, resident in Lebanon, born January 1949, and Rose Marie Chagoury, British, resident in Lebanon, born December 1947. Each is recorded as holding more than 25 per cent but not more than 50 per cent of shares and voting rights. The same register lists Christopher Gilbert Chagoury, Ronald Chagoury (born January 1983) and Philippe Charles Pouponnot as directors appointed on 30 April 2021, with Georges Ferre resigned on 15 May 2023.

The Bloomberg report also set out past legal matters involving Gilbert Chagoury personally. It stated that in 2000 he was convicted in Switzerland of laundering money for the former military ruler Sani Abacha, that he has admitted making illegal campaign contributions in the United States, and that in 1993 he forfeited 460,000 dollars to resolve a Chicago lawsuit. Those matters concern an individual, not the construction firm. We found no regulator finding, sanction or enforcement action against Hitech Construction Company itself, and the Bloomberg piece makes no misconduct allegation against the company.

What it has built

The coastal highway contract was awarded on 24 September 2023 and announced by the Minister of Works, David Umahi. Bloomberg put the project value at 13 billion dollars, or roughly 15 trillion naira, for the full route. The portion attributable to Hitech Construction Company as distinct from the whole programme has not been published.

Phase 1, Section 1 covers 47.474 kilometres of ten-lane rigid pavement with seven bridges, according to the company's own project page. When the 30 kilometre stretch opened in December 2025, the managing director, Engr. Dany Abboud, said "the entire stretch of 47.474km is expected to be completed before the end of the second quarter of 2026." In February 2026 Vanguard reported Umahi as targeting commissioning of Section 1 by May. Readers checking this after the fact should treat that as a stated target rather than a recorded completion.

One published measurement dispute is worth knowing about. On 11 June 2025 Premium Times reported that Objectv Media measured the commissioned stretch at 26.27 kilometres against the 30 kilometres announced. The report records no company response to that specific finding.

Elsewhere, Peoples Gazette reported that on the reconstructed Apapa-Oworonshoki-Ojota-Oshodi Expressway, inaugurated in May 2024, Dangote Industries Limited was the primary contractor and Hitech the subcontractor. The Chagoury Group site attributes Banana Island, the Bar Beach shoreline protection works and bridges at Eko Atlantic to the firm, and names Royal Haskoning as marine engineers and South Energyx Nigeria Limited, the Eko Atlantic developer, as a partner on shoreline work. Those attributions come from the group's own website and we found no independent confirmation of them.

Financing and the court record

The Federal Ministry of Finance announced a 747 million dollar syndicated loan for Phase 1 Section 1 on 9 July 2025, with Deutsche Bank as global coordinator and First Abu Dhabi Bank, Afreximbank, the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, the Abu Dhabi Exports Office, Nexent Bank N.V. and Zenith Bank in the syndicate, with cover from the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit. In December 2025 the State House announced a further 1.126 billion dollar package for Section 2.

The procurement has been challenged. Funso Doherty filed suit FHC/L/1555/2024 at the Federal High Court in Lagos against the Attorney General of the Federation, the Bureau of Public Procurement and HiTech Construction, arguing the award breached the Public Procurement Act. Justice A.O. Owoeye struck the suit out on 3 April 2025 on the ground that Doherty lacked locus standi, which means it was not decided on its merits, and Doherty filed a notice of appeal dated 12 June 2025. Separately, the House of Representatives resolved on 9 May 2024 to probe the procurement on a motion by Austin Achado. We could not find a published report from those committees.

What is still unverified

No primary CAC record was obtained for the Nigerian entity, so the RC number, incorporation date, registered address and the directors listed by the aggregator all rest on a single republished source. The relationship between the Nigerian and UK entities is undocumented publicly. Delivery claims on the company's own site, including projects in Togo and Benin, carry no independent confirmation we could find.

Anyone weighing a purchase in a development that names this contractor should treat its project list as a claim to be checked rather than a record, and compare what has been announced against what has been recorded. Bektu keeps a delivery-history page for the firm at bektu.com/companies/hitech-construction-company.