An investigative report has accused Olugbenga Agboola, CEO and co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest tech unicorns, Flutterwave of “insider trading, fraud, and perjury” occurring over a four year period.
Agboola has been accused of using Flutterwave to engage in impersonation, insider trading and inappropriate behaviours in the workplace.
This was revealed in an investigation report on the company, by independent investigative Journalist David Hundeyin on Tuesday titled, “Flutterwave: The African Unicorn Built On Quicksand”, he accused the organization of fraud, perjury, and insider trading shedding a dark cloud over one of the most respected tech startups in Africa.
Mr. Hundeyin confirmed to Nairametrics that he authored the article. Nairametrics cannot independently verify some of the details and accusations in the article. Efforts to reach Flutterwave were unsuccessful as they declined to comment as of when this article was written.
The article has also gone viral on social media and is being discussed across several channels including Twitter spaces and ClubHouse. Mr Hundeyin also granted a Twitter Spaces audio session where he discussed the article with listeners.
The expose was 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 Mr, Olugbenga Agboola “GB”, the founder of Flutterwave.
He accused Mr, Olugbenga Agboola (GB), the founder of Flutterwave of engaging in “insider trading” by offering to buy “stock options” from employees at a price “lower” than the “market price”.
He also alleged that this was an offense under US law and could attract jail time. It was alos alleged by him 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?”
Mr. Hundeyin made 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 Unicor 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 Flutterwave 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.
(Nairametrics)
