Flutterwave Latest: How Embattled CEO, Agboola Forced Out Partner, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji
- By Metropolix ~
- April 26, 2022 --
- 0 Comment
-Agboola, Aboyeji
With the many scandalous irregularities that befell a fast growing tech firm, Flutterwave where the CEO and co-founder of one of Nigeria’s largest tech firms, Olugbenga Agboola was exposed and accused of insider trading, fraud, impersonation, inappropriate behaviour in the workplace like bullying, intimidation and even going as far as sabotaging efforts made by a former employee of the company to get another job, the circumstances surrounding the exit of his co-founder, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, from the company have been revealed.
It was gathered that Agboola allegedly forced Aboyeji out of the company and locked him out of his company email and slack accounts. Although Aboyeji admitted that at some point he couldn’t gain access to his email and slack accounts, he denied that he was forced out of the company he built, insisting that he resigned on October 12, 2018, two years after he incorporated the company.
When one gets locked out of one’s company email and slack account, it is as good as being sacked. Indeed, Aboyeji alleged that there was bad blood between him and Agboola. He said that Agboola, who has 59 percent controlling shares in the company, did not like the fact that he (Aboyeji) was telling him (Agboola) what to do.
Aboyeji has since moved on and now runs Future Africa, a mission-driven company that raises funds to solve Africa’s biggest challenges. He is the founder and a general partner.
In the wake of explosive accusations against Africa’s most valuable startup firm, Agboola we gathered did not resign from his job as Head of Digital Factory and Innovation at Access Bank before working at Flutterwave. It said Aboyeji had been a co-conspirator who had testified, alongside Agboola and Access Bank CEO Herbert Wigwe, before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under oath, that Agboola never worked simultaneously at Flutterwave and Access Bank.
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji once responded to the allegations of fraud and insider trading levelled against the company’s management and current CEO and co-founder, Olugbenga Agboola.
The accusations were laid out in an article by David Hundeyin, and a Medium post by Clara Wanjiku.
While both Wanjiku and Hundeyin’s articles raised important questions about the culture, ethics, and governance at Flutterwave, Aboyeji claims no privileged insight into the company after his time there. He however addressed concerns raised about things that happened while he was CEO of the payment giant.
One of the many actions Agboola was accused of was creating a ghost “co-founder” identity, who went by the name Greg, to give himself more shares, in the company’s early days. To this, Aboyeji told TechCabal that the agreement between the co-founders was that Agboola would hold some shares in trust for the fictitious Greg.
“When I joined the company, I was told there’s a chief technology officer named Greg, who’s from MIT, whom I’d meet someday. It never happened,” Aboyeji said. “After a while, it became clear what had happened. By that time it didn’t matter. We [Aboyeji and third co-founder Adeleke Adekoya] had already signed agreements, and I decided to just move on.”
On Wednesday, April 13, Aboyeji had put out a series of tweets, aimed at distancing himself from any involvement in the allegations levelled at Agboola and Flutterwave. He said, in one of them, that some of the allegations made could prevent him from being a company director, and thus affect his livelihood.
To further substantiate the story, the originator, Gbenga Hundeyin said;
“First of all, it was the rumour about irregularities going on within the tech space. These had been flying around for years. I had met people who swore that a lot of the tech startups were fraudulent. But it’s one thing to hear, and it’s another thing to give substance to them. When I started getting the information towards the end of last year, I was under the impression that everybody knew that myself and the genius founder of Flutterwave didn’t get along, so I thought that if I did any kind of story about Flutterwave, it was just going to look like I had some kind of personal vendetta against him, so I didn’t even want to do the story.
Also, I initially thought it was a story about sexual harassment or bullying. Those things are bad but if you do a story about a business doing those things, people may not really see it as a big deal. It was when I got information about the company indulging in fraud that I decided to jump on it. Because this is very useful information from an investment point of view and from the point of view of the wider Nigerian economy.
If this continues, then it means the Nigerian economy will start getting filled with startups which have nothing in them but lies. And when this bursts, it will affect everybody because that’s how financial contagion works. So, I decided to burst the bubble before it got out of hand, to demonstrate to investors that the Nigerian tech space is maturing, as we can be relied upon to do the right thing.”
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