the Flutterwave scandal is currently trending in Nigeria, Africa, and maybe the world at large as its Chief Executive Officer, Olugbenga Agboola has been allegedly involved in a dubious business. Maybe you are yet to get details of the news, on this page we shall be looking at the investigative report of a renowned journalist, David Hundeyin, the founder of West Africa Weekly newsletter.

Flutterwave Scandal

The Flutterwave scandal entails an alleged dubious business and personal practices involvinf its CEO and founder, Olugbenga Agboola. it is a story published on April 12, 2022 on West Africa Weekly, a newsletter by David Hundeyin. Mr. Olugbenga is said to have created a phantom “co-founder” identity to offer more shares to himself during the company’s early days, and offered share prices below the company’s valuation to employees who wanted to cash in on their vested options.

other allegations includes Agboola not disclosing to Access Bank his last employer who he was simultaneously working for them while building Flutterwave in the later’s early days, thereby taking unfair advantages of his positions and assets at the bank.

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Without wasting much of your time, let me now show you highlight of the report made by journalist David Hundeyin.

Highlights of David Hundeyin’s Report on the Flutterwave Scandal

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.
He also accused GB of impersonating and double-dealing by using his contact as a staff of Access Bank (Nigeria’s largest bank by asset base) to give deals to Flutterwave unbeknownst to unsuspecting clients and Access Bank. GB was also working for Access Bank at the time.
He also accused Flutterwave of 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 also accused 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.”

Conclusion

As a result of the ongoing Flutterwave scandal, many Nigerians are afraid that foreign investors who increasingly invest huge amount of money into African startup might start to have a rethink. You can as well contribute your thoughts in the comment section of this page.