American bankers’ three-floor St. John’s Wood home with an eight-car driveway, two gardens, automatic gates, and a gym.
The “President-elect” Bola Tinubu’s son’s business acquired a $11 million London, United Kingdom property in 2017, which President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration tried to seize as part of an inquiry into one of Nigeria’s greatest corruption scandals.
According to Bloomberg, President Buhari visited Tinubu at the London home in August 2021, over four years after the 2017 purchase, but there is no evidence that Tinubu was actively engaged.
Business records obtained by the media organisation revealed that Tinubu’s 37-year-old son, Oluwaseyi, is the primary stakeholder of Aranda Overseas Corp.. This offshore company paid Deutsche Bank £9 million ($10.8 million) for the North London property in late 2017.
American bankers’ three-floor St. John’s Wood home with an eight-car driveway, two gardens, automatic gates, and a gym.
Bloomberg adds that Tinubu’s spokesperson and son, Oluwaseyi, have yet to reply to emails, calls, and texts about the property deal. Aranda’s UK representative, a British lawyer, refuses to comment due to confidentiality regulations.
The article added that when Tinubu’s son acquired the London home, the Nigerian government was trying to arrest the house’s prior owner for fleeing while owing the country more than $1.5 billion in oil-trading debt.
Buhari’s administration tried to seize Kolawole Aluko’s luxury real estate because it was suspected of being bought with criminal proceeds.
Aluko denied all wrongdoing and said a court order earlier this year acquitting a former business partner cleared his record, but Nigeria’s anti-graft agency is challenging the ruling.
In August 2021, Buhari visited Tinubu at his 7,000-square-foot London home, according to Bloomberg.
The former governor of Osun state, Adegboyega Oyetola, and the chairman of a Nigerian property business, Elusanmi Eludoyin, were Aranda’s owners and directors from its founding 24 years ago till at least 2010.
Oyetola’s spokesperson and Eludoyin didn’t comment.
However, documents filed this year in response to new UK anti-money laundering rules and seen by Bloomberg show that Tinubu’s son, an advertising entrepreneur who played a major role in his father’s presidential campaign, has controlled British Virgin Islands-registered Aranda since June 2011. On January 20, 2011, the firm became a UK foreign corporation.
The Nigerian government sued Diezani Alison-Madueke, Minister of Petroleum, and two businessmen, Aluko and Olajide Omokore, who received lucrative contracts during her tenure early in Buhari’s first term.
Aluko and Omokore bribed the former minister by subsidising her “lavish” lifestyle and neglected to pay the state energy corporation for most of the oil they got, according to a 2017 forfeiture action filed in Texas by the US government.
However, Alison-Madueke refuted the accusations, has been fighting numerous forfeiture orders issued by Nigerian courts, and has accused the anti-corruption organisation of obstructing her attempts to defend herself in court.
In June 2016, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) asked an Abuja federal judge to seize Aluko’s assets in Nigeria and abroad, including the property in St. John’s Wood. The forfeiture order was still in force 16 months later, when Tinubu’s son bought the house out of receivership.
According to court records, the order was temporary until Aluko’s probe was completed. Tokunbo Jaiye-Agoro, Aluko’s lawyer, told Bloomberg that the forfeiture action is “sub-judice.”
The research also showed that Deutsche Bank had foreclosed on the residence and appointed receivers to sell it in late 2016. However, court papers need to indicate that the Nigerian government was aware of this. According to the US Justice Department, Aluko used other assets to get loans.
The EFCC said in court files that Aluko “fled the country” to avoid fraud charges and that the buildings “were alleged to have been acquired with the proceeds of crime.”
Omokore was acquitted in February by a Nigerian court of charges linked to the same claims, but the EFCC, which accused him of stealing the state energy business of $1.6 billion, has promised to appeal.
Aluko and Alison-Madueke were removed from the indictment since they were abroad, and Aluko’s location is unknown.
Jaiye-Agoro, Aluko’s lawyer, claimed that Omokore’s acquittal “puts to rest all the erroneous charges” regarding his and Aluko’s riches and that despite the EFCC’s appeal, “the present state of events” is that Aluko’s income was “legal and not from any corrupt activity.”
Omokore’s lawyer, Rafiu Lawal-Rabana, told Bloomberg by text message that he “objects to the continual association of his name to any corrupt activities” and that the court judgement earlier this year exonerated him on all charges.
Alison-lawyer Madueke’s and Buhari’s spokesperson declined to comment. The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Abubakar Malami, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPL), and the EFCC did not reply to Bloomberg’s requests for comment.
However, his son’s company bought one of Aluko’s properties in October 2017, as the government Tinubu helped bring to power pursued him and his assets. According to UK land records, Aranda owns the building and has no mortgage.
A UK unit of Deutsche Bank AG that held a mortgage on the property and had appointed receivers to sell it a year earlier sold the house to the firm. Deutsche Bank declined to comment on Aluko’s 2013 purchase of the home via a BVI company for £11.95 million.
Aluko’s lawyer, Jaiye-Agoro, said his client “was not privy to the transaction” because the bank had foreclosed on the house, but the UK’s National Crime Agency did not answer inquiries about whether it had received a request from the Nigerian authorities to freeze the property. Also silent was the UK Home Office.
On March 27, the US Justice Department said that it had confiscated a 65-meter superyacht and luxury properties in California and New York acquired by Aluko for more than $160 million using corruption money.
