- New documents show Bola Tinubu’s son controls offshore owner
- Businessman accused of $1.6 billion fraud once owned the house
By William Clowes, May 2, 2023
A firm belonging to the son of Nigeria’s president-elect bought an $11 million London mansion that his predecessor’s government was seeking to confiscate as part of a probe into one of the biggest corruption scandals in the West African nation’s history, according to previously unreported UK company documents.
There’s no suggestion that President-elect Bola Tinubu was personally involved in the acquisition of the UK property in 2017. Current President Muhammadu Buhari visited him there in August 2021, nearly four years after the purchase took place. Tinubu, who will take over as head of state this month, has long been questioned about the source of his family’s wealth, including throughout the recent election campaign, when he and his representatives were pressed about it by local and international media.
He and his campaign have said he made his fortune before going into politics by inheriting real estate, investing well and working as an accountant at Deloitte LLP and an executive at the Nigerian subsidiary of Mobil Oil in the 1980s and early 1990s. In an interview with the BBC in the run-up to the election, Tinubu cited Warren Buffett as an example he followed to become rich.
The corporate documents seen by Bloomberg show for the first time that Tinubu’s 37-year-old son Oluwaseyi is the main shareholder of Aranda Overseas Corp., an offshore company that paid £9 million ($10.8 million) to Deutsche Bank for the property in north London in late 2017. The private three-floor residence in St. John’s Wood — a district favored by American bankers — is equipped with an eight-car driveway, two gardens, electric gates and a gym.
Bola Tinubu’s spokesman and Oluwaseyi Tinubu did not respond to emails, phone calls and text messages seeking comment. A British lawyer listed as Aranda’s agent in the UK declined to comment citing confidentiality rules.
At the time of the purchase, Nigeria’s government was seeking to arrest the house’s former owner, accusing him of going on the run while owing the country an oil-trading debt worth more than $1.5 billion. The state was also attempting to confiscate the upscale real estate and other assets it suspected had been acquired by the businessman — Kolawole Aluko — with the profits of crime. Aluko denies all allegations of wrongdoing and says a court judgment earlier this year acquitting a former business partner has cleared his name. That ruling is being challenged by Nigeria’s anti-graft agency.
Tinubu, 71, won an election in February as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress and is scheduled to succeed his political ally Buhari on May 29. He was a key powerbroker in the merger of opposition parties that brought the current head of state to office in 2015.
While Buhari was elected on a pledge to tackle widespread graft, the country’s ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has deteriorated over the past eight years.
Buhari Visit
A former Governor of Lagos state, Tinubu has long been dogged by allegations of graft and rule-breaking, which he denies. In 1993, he forfeited $460,000 to resolve a lawsuit in Chicago after US federal authorities said that bank accounts in his name held the proceeds of heroin trafficking. Tinubu’s lawyers have said he was never charged over the matter.
While staying at the 7,000-square foot London home in August 2021, Tinubu received a visit from Buhari there, according to the Lagos-based Premium Times.
The online newspaper — using documents obtained from the Pandora Papers leak of offshore companies data — revealed that the shareholders and directors of Aranda from its formation 24 years ago until at least 2010 were Adegboyega Oyetola, the former Governor of Osun state, and Elusanmi Eludoyin, head of a Nigerian property group. Oyetola’s spokesman and Eludoyin did not respond to requests for comment.
Documents filed this year in response to new anti-money laundering rules in the UK and seen by Bloomberg show that Tinubu’s son — an entrepreneur active in advertising who played a prominent role in his father’s presidential campaign — has been in control of British Virgin Islands-registered Aranda since June 2011. The company registered as an overseas entity in the UK on Jan. 20.
