Newly uncovered UK company documents has revealed that the son of Nigeria’s president-elect, Bola Tinubu, purchased an $11 million mansion in London in 2017 through an offshore company.
The property, located in the St. John’s Wood district of north London, was the subject of a government probe into a major corruption scandal in Nigeria.
The former owner, Kolawole Aluko, was accused of evading an oil-trading debt worth over $1.5 billion and the government was seeking to confiscate the property and other assets believed to be obtained through illicit means.
Tinubu’s 37-year-old son, Oluwaseyi, is listed as the main shareholder of Aranda Overseas Corp., the offshore company that paid £9 million ($10.8 million) for the property through Deutsche Bank.
Although there is no suggestion that President-elect Tinubu was personally involved in the purchase, current President Muhammadu Buhari visited Tinubu at the London residence in August 2021, nearly four years after the purchase took place.
Tinubu has long faced questions about the source of his family’s wealth, particularly during the recent election campaign. He and his campaign have maintained that he made his fortune prior to entering politics through real estate inheritance, wise investments, and his previous roles at Deloitte LLP and the Nigerian subsidiary of Mobil Oil.
He cited Warren Buffett as a role model in a BBC interview prior to the election.
Tinubu and his son have not responded to requests for comment, and a British lawyer listed as Aranda’s agent declined to comment, citing confidentiality rules. The property boasts an eight-car driveway, two gardens, electric gates, and a gym, and is located in a district favored by American bankers.
While President-elect Tinubu is set to take office this month as a key powerbroker in the merger of opposition parties that brought President Buhari to office in 2015, Nigeria’s ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has declined over the past eight years despite Buhari’s promise to tackle corruption.
Buhari’s Visit
The alleged graft and rule-breaking accusations against former Lagos State governor, Tinubu, have persisted for quite some time now. However, Tinubu has always denied these allegations, including a 1993 lawsuit in Chicago, where he forfeited $460,000 to settle with US federal authorities who claimed that bank accounts under his name held proceeds from heroin trafficking. Tinubu’s lawyers insist that he was never charged for this matter.
Recently, reports from the Lagos-based Premium Times reveal that Tinubu received a visit from President Buhari in August 2021 while staying at a lavish a 7,000-square foot London residence. These revelations came to light through documents obtained from the Pandora Papers leak of offshore company data.
According to the documents, the shareholders and directors of Aranda – a company established 24 years ago – until at least 2010, were Adegboyega Oyetola, former governor of Osun state, and Elusanmi Eludoyin, the head of a Nigerian property group. However, neither Oyetola’s spokesperson nor Eludoyin commented on these allegations.
In addition, documents filed this year as a response to new anti-money laundering rules in the UK and seen by Bloomberg, reveal that Tinubu’s son – an entrepreneur involved in advertising who played a significant role in his father’s presidential campaign – has been in control of Aranda, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands, since June 2011. Interestingly, the company registered as an overseas entity in the UK on Jan. 20.
Aluko Allegations
During the early days of President Buhari’s tenure, legal actions were initiated against Diezani Alison-Madueke, who had served as the oil minister for five years until 2015, as well as two businessmen, Kola Aluko and Olajide Omokore.
According to a 2017 forfeiture lawsuit filed in Texas by the US government, Aluko and Omokore allegedly bribed the minister by financing her “lavish” lifestyle, and failed to pay the state energy company for most of the crude oil they received.
Alison-Madueke, who is based in London, has denied the allegations, challenging multiple forfeiture orders made by Nigerian courts. She has also accused the anti-corruption agency of preventing her from defending herself in criminal proceedings.
In June 2016, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) requested that more than a dozen properties owned by Aluko, including one in St. John’s Wood, be seized. This was still in effect when Tinubu’s son purchased the house out of receivership 16 months later. The ruling was made temporarily while an investigation into Aluko continued, which remained ongoing as of the end of 2018, according to court filings. Aluko cannot comment on the forfeiture case because it is still “sub-judice,” according to his lawyer, Tokunbo Jaiye-Agoro.
In late 2016, Deutsche Bank foreclosed on the St. John’s Wood property, but there is no evidence to suggest that the Nigerian government was aware of this when it pursued the seizure process against Aluko. Aluko had taken out loans using other properties as collateral, according to the US Justice Department. The EFCC claimed that the buildings “were suspected to have been purchased with the proceeds of crime” and Aluko “fled the country” to avoid answering the fraud allegations against him, according to court filings.
Omokore was acquitted of charges related to the same allegations in February by a Nigerian court. The EFCC, which alleges he defrauded the state energy firm of $1.6 billion, has said it will appeal the decision. Aluko and Alison-Madueke were removed from the indictment as they were out of the country. Aluko’s location is unknown.
Jaiye-Agoro claimed that the acquittal of Omokore “puts to rest all the false allegations” surrounding his and Aluko’s wealth, and that Aluko’s income was “legitimate and not from any corrupt practice.” Lawal-Rabana, Omokore’s lawyer, also denied any connection between his client and corrupt practices.
A spokesperson for President Buhari and Alison-Madueke’s lawyer declined to comment, while spokespeople for Attorney General Abubakar Malami, the Nigerian National Petroleum Co. Ltd., and the EFCC did not respond to requests for comment.
Yachts, Penthouses
In 2017, when the Nigerian government was pursuing Kola Aluko and his assets, a company owned by the son of Bola Tinubu, who played a key role in bringing the current government to power, purchased one of the targeted properties.
The property is still owned by the company, Aranda, and according to UK land records, there is currently no mortgage registered to it. The property was not purchased directly from Aluko but from a UK unit of Deutsche Bank AG that held a mortgage on the property and had appointed receivers to sell it a year earlier. Aluko acquired the mansion in 2013 through a British Virgin Islands (BVI) company for £11.95 million, according to Premium Times, but Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the matter.
Jaiye-Agoro, a spokesperson for Aluko, stated that Aluko had no knowledge of Aranda or the individuals behind the company and “was not privy to the sale” as the bank had foreclosed on the house. The UK’s National Crime Agency did not respond to questions about whether it had ever received a request from Nigerian authorities to freeze the property. The UK Home Office also declined to comment.
Recently, on March 27, the US Justice Department revealed that it had seized more than $53 million in assets purchased by Aluko for over $160 million in what it considers to be the proceeds of corruption. The confiscated assets included a 65-meter superyacht and luxury homes in California and New York.
