Gboyega Oyetola,
governor of Osun, bought a mansion in London from a company belonging to Kola
Aluko, a Nigerian businessman who is being tried for money laundering.
This was revealed in leaked files retrieved from offshore
services firms around the world and released in a Pandora Papers project led by
the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), and which
Premium Times is a part of.
According to Premium Times,
documents obtained from the UK property register revealed that in July 2013,
the property with title number 340992, was bought for £11.95 million by Zavlil
Holdings Ltd, a shell company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, a tax
haven.
Zavlil Holdings Limited, the paper reported, is owned by Aluko.
Aluko, an ally of Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former
minister of petroleum resources, has been the subject of various investigations
in Nigeria and abroad for allegedly taking part in shady oil contracts.
The federal government had in 2017 sought an injunction to
freeze the assets of Aluko, including the UK property located at 32, Grove End
Road, London.
A federal high court in Lagos subsequently granted the
federal government’s request.
“But just around the
time (on October 18, 2017) the court dismissed the defendant’s attempt to
dismiss the injunction, documents obtained from the U.K. property register
revealed that Mr Aluko sold the house for £9 million to Aranda Overseas
Corporation, an offshore company incorporated in the British Virgins Island by
two of Mr Tinubu’s most trusted surrogates – Adegboyega Oyetola, formerly chair
of Paragon Group of Companies and incumbent governor of Osun State and Elusanmi
Eludoyin, Mr Oyetola’s successor at Paragon,” the newspaper wrote.
“The huge discount at which the property was sold is curious
and raised questions of whether Mr Aluko desperately needed to sell the
property even while a court of law had placed a freeze order on it.
“The United Kingdom, especially the greater London area, is
noted for rapid increase in the value of properties. According to PREMIUM
TIMES’ calculation of the likely value of the property when it was bought by
Aranda Overseas Corporation done on the website of UK’s National Building
Society, which is the largest building society in the world, the property
should be worth approximately 17 million pounds. Thus, Mr Aluko sold the
property at a discount of £8,000,000.”
According to Premium Times, Oyetola and one his associates
had in 1999 sought the service of a Bristol, UK-based international company
registration agent, Jordans Limited, to help them set up a company.
Leaked records, the paper said, revealed that Oyetola and
his partner became the shareholders and directors of Aranda and “we did not see
any record that the latter resigned from the management of the company even as
he served as chief of staff to his predecessor, Rauf Aregbesola, thereby
breaking Nigeria’s law”.
Upon becoming a public officer, such a person is mandated to
withdraw from engaging in or directing a private business, except if it is
farming.
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