Barely weeks after being accused of bullying, intimidation and sabotaging the work opportunities of one of his ex staff, a fresh accusation has been levelled against Olugbenga Agboola, the CEO and co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest tech unicorns, Flutterwave.
An investigative report has accused him of insider trading, fraud, and perjury” occurring over a four year period.
Agboola has been accused of using his tech company to engage in impersonation, insider trading and inappropriate behaviours in the workplace.
This was revealed in an investigation report by independent investigative journalist David Hundeyin in a piece titled, “Flutterwave: The African Unicorn Built On Quicksand.”
David accused the organization of fraud, perjury, and insider trading shedding a dark cloud over one of the most respected tech startups in Africa.
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The expose based on interviews with three ex-employees of Flutterwave whom the writer said he had an extensive discussion for his story. The accusation was largely on Agboola for engaging in “insider trading” by offering to buy “stock options” from employees at a price “lower” than the “market price”.
The report alleged that this was an offence under US law and could attract jail time. It was also alleged that Flutterwave was engaging in “fraudulent” activities by dealing Arik Air without “paperwork” thus facilitating transactions without proper documentation.
“Basically someone at Arik started a payments company to process payments for Arik, but he was processing through Flutterwave. So he got a cut of every Arik transaction – and Arik transaction volumes were among the biggest at Flutterwave – but there was no reseller agreement. Isn’t that basically corruption?”
The report also mention of a legal firm Banwo and Ighodalo “B&I” of caving in to the demand of Flutterwave by advising a client to drop a case against the Tech Unicorn after they had initially told the client otherwise,
“Suddenly and without notice, shortly after presenting a professional opinion stating that Flutterwave was in the wrong and had a case to answer, B&I quietly informed Jennifer that they had been retained by Flutterwave and they would have to drop her case. Apparently whenever Flutterwave wants anything in Nigeria – ethical or not – GB just signs a cheque and makes any problem go away.”
The report further accused investors in the company of largely ignoring some of the accusations even though they were aware of them.
“Someone sent an email detailing all these fraudulent activities to every investor on the cap table, and they are all aware and they talk about it, but they did nothing.”
