Osinbajo’s firm linked to company fingered in alleged N100bn Alpha Beta scam

A company in which Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has a stake,
Simmons Coopers Partners, has been linked to another firm, Ocean
Trust Limited, which was fingered in an alleged N100bn scam
involving Alpha Beta Consulting Limited and Alpha Beta LP, Punch
report.

Ocean Trust Limited, which was accused of being a conduit for
diversion and laundering of funds by Alpha Beta, listed Simmons
Coopers as its company secretary, documents exclusively obtained
from the Corporate Affairs Commission by Saturday PUNCH showed.

Simmons Coopers was listed as a company in which Prof Yemi
Osinbajo (now Vice-President) had a stake in his asset declaration
form in 2015, according to the statement by the Senior Special
Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu.

In a petition submitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission in July 2018, Dapo Apara, the erstwhile managing
director of Alpha Beta, had alleged that Alpha Beta owed the
Federal Government N100bn in unpaid taxes spanning over 10 years,
adding that the firm usually laundered funds through another firm,
Ocean Trust Limited.

He alleged that the firm was being protected by powerful
politicians.

The petition by Apara’s lawyer, Adetunji Adegboyega, read in
part, “Over the years, the company (Alpha Beta) has been protected
and shielded by some powerful politicians and people in the society
which made them to always boast of being untouchable.

“But our client, feeling the need not to keep quiet again and
strengthened by his belief in the fact that the government of
President Muhammadu Buhari is keen on fighting corruption which has
been the bane of our country, is of the firm view that it is time
to expose and open the can of worms called Alpha Beta
Consulting.

“Our client is of the firm belief that it is time for the
commission to step in and conduct a holistic investigation into the
activities of Alpha Beta Consulting Limited and Alpha Beta LLP with
a view to uncovering the massive corruption, money laundering, tax
evasion, etc., going on in the company.

“Kindly note that one of the companies being used to perpetrate
money laundering by the company is still another company named
Ocean Trust Limited.”

Osinbajo’s reaction

When contacted on the relationship between Osinbajo’s firm,
Simmons Coopers and Ocean Trust, the Senior Special Assistant to
the Vice-President on Media, Mr Laolu Akande, said he would not
comment on the matter unless Saturday PUNCH showed him the document
indicating Simmons Coopers was Ocean Trust’s company secretary.

But, a source close to Osinbajo told Saturday PUNCH that “the
Vice President has since 2014 left the firm. There is no interest
there anymore.”

The source added, “And I think you should talk to the EFCC about
its own decisions. It does not make sense that the EFCC will say it
is not prosecuting or, as you say, investigating or probing (the
allegations) because of what you claimed.”

However, Osinbajo in 2015 listed Simmons Coopers as one of his
companies in his asset declaration form.

Where is Ocean Trust?

Saturday PUNCH, which investigated Ocean Trust Limited for three
months, conducted a search at the Corporate Affairs Commission.

It was noted during a CAC search that the firm was registered
with number 419706 on January 5, 2011, and is located at 684, Idowu
Taylor Street, Victoria Island, Lagos and had Gboyega Iyiola and
Kunle Akinniyi as shareholders at the inception both of whom
relinquished their shares two days later on January 7, 2011.

One of documents exclusively
obtained from the Corporate Affairs Commission

Incidentally, the property where Ocean Trust Limited is located
shares the same address with the office of former Governor Bola
Tinubu of Lagos State known as ‘Freedom House’.

All efforts to contact Ocean Trust Limited proved futile as
investigations by Saturday PUNCH showed that the company might no
longer be in operation.

Also, attempts to speak with its management turned out to be a
wild goose chase.

When one of our correspondents visited the company’s address at
the Freedom House, Plot 684, Idowu Taylor Street, a
fair-complexioned lady, who said she was an employee of Ocean Trust
Limited, told Saturday PUNCH that the company was no longer located
there.

When asked if it was true that the firm was being used to
launder funds for Alpha Beta, the lady, who refused to identify
herself, asked our correspondent to send an email which she would
forward to her boss.

Over three weeks after one of our correspondents sent her an
email, a response was still being awaited as of the time of filing
this report on Friday.

A visit to Ocean Trust’s second listed address at 42 Norman
Williams Avenue, Ikoyi, Lagos yielded no positive result as the
compound looked deserted having been overtaken by weeds.

Another document obtained from the
CAC …

Saturday PUNCH met with a lady, who simply gave her name as
Blessing, and confirmed that the place was being used by Ocean
Trust. She, however, said she could not speak on any issue as the
place was only a correspondence office.

After a brief chat, she gave one of our reporters a phone number
that she claimed belonged to an accountant with Ocean Trust.

When Saturday PUNCH called the number, a man who picked the
phone said he was not a staff member of the company.

After one of our correspondents told Blessing that the
‘accountant’ denied working for Ocean Trust, she referred him to
the head office on 9 Grace Anjous Street, Lekki Phase I to make an
enquiry.

When one of our correspondents got to the address, a male
receptionist initially confirmed that the office belonged to Ocean
Trust.

However, after an introduction as a journalist, he retracted his
statement and said the premises belonged to Paragon Holdings and
only delivered correspondences to Ocean Trust.

He said, “Ocean Trust is not one of our partners; they used to
use here to receive correspondences, but they no longer come
here.

“They are not our partners again. Here, we only deal with their
files, both physical and electronic.”

While questioning the receptionist on why he had earlier
admitted that the place belonged to Ocean Trust, another man
emerged from one of the offices in the building and said Ocean
Trust was no longer in existence.

He said, “To the best of my knowledge, Ocean Trust is not
functioning. We only receive correspondences for them, but in terms
of business, they stopped existing before the end of the (former
Lagos State Governor Babatunde) Fashola’s administration. We don’t
even know who they are. They’ve folded up since.”

EFCC yet to take action

One year after Apara’s petition, the EFCC has yet to take any
action on the matter.

The EFCC spokesman, Tony Orilade, had said in February that the
petitioner should send a reminder as the petition could not be
traced.

In a recent chat with Saturday PUNCH on why the commission had
refused to respond to media inquiries for over a month, the EFCC
spokesman asked one of our correspondents to give him more time to
react.

Efforts made thereafter to get a response from the EFCC did not
yield result.

As of Friday when this report was being filed, Orilade had yet
to respond.

Apara, who accused the firm of tax evasion to the tune of
N100bn, also told Saturday PUNCH that the EFCC had yet to contact
him a year after the petition had been submitted.

“I have still not been contacted by the EFCC,” he said in
response to an inquiry.

Alpha Beta’s controversies

Alpha Beta Consulting was awarded a contract by the Tinubu-led
government after a recommendation by a committee comprising the
then attorney-general of Lagos State, Prof Osinbajo (now the
Vice-President); Mr Wale Edun, the then commissioner for finance;
and a former commissioner for economic planning and budget, Yemi
Cardoso.

The firm was subsequently given exclusive rights to collect
taxes on behalf of Lagos State and was believed to receive about 10
per cent commission from the revenue it collected for the
state.

However, pro-transparency groups and opposition politicians have
constantly alleged that Tinubu owns Alpha Beta.

In 2012, a Lagos-based medical doctor, Dominic Adegbola, filed a
Freedom of Information request to state authorities, seeking
detailed information on all Alpha Beta contracts with Lagos State
since 1999.

But the state’s Attorney-General then, Ade Ipaye, (now
Osinbajo’s chief of staff), rejected the request, insisting that
the FoI was a federal law that did not apply to the states.

However, in November 2017, a state judge ruled that the FoI was
applicable to Lagos State. The judge said the law was duly enacted
by the National Assembly and did not require domestication to take
effect in states.

When one of our correspondents visited the office of Alpha Beta
at the Lagos Water Corporation Building, Ijora Causeway, Lagos, the
company’s Head of Corporate Support Services and General Counsel,
Mr Omogbemi Adelagun, said the matter was already in court and,
therefore, he could not comment on the issue.

“If the matter had not been taken to court, we would have been
able to react to it. So, right now, we cannot say anything until
the court rules on the case,” he said.

Alpha Beta LLP had, however, said in an advertorial in response
to the allegations levelled against it by its former MD that the
accusations were illogical and false.

The advertorial read in part, “Alpha Beta has been visibly
engaged by the Lagos State Government since 2002 as a forensic,
internal control and enhancement adviser. In working with the
state, Alpha Beta helped develop the state’s centralised
transaction platforms, the precursor to the present-day Treasury
Single Account.”

The firm said at the time it entered into the contract with
Lagos State, the state was taking in the sum of N600m in internally
generated revenue per month but things had since changed for the
better.

Former MD heads to court

Meanwhile, the Alpha Beta’s former managing director, Apara, has
approached a Federal High Court, Abuja, “directing an investigation
to be made by the Corporate Affairs Commission into the conduct of
Alpha Beta Consulting Limited.”

Apara, who said he had been and remained a director of the firm
since its incorporation, with control of 30 per cent of its shares
value, also alleged that the financial records of the company filed
with the CAC and tax authorities did not reflect the actual profits
of the company or of its directors.

He alleged among others in the suit that he and shareholders of
the company were being owed their remunerations.

Also praying for the takeover of the management of the company
by an appointee of the court, the suit urged the court “to appoint
a receiver or a receiver manager of the property of Alpha Beta
Consulting Limited.”

The suit, couched as a “petition” and brought under the
Companies Proceedings Rules and Order 5 of the Federal High Court
(Civil Procedure) Rules 2009, was filed on November 9, 2018 and
marked FHC/ABJ/PET/2018.

When contacted on the telephone, a former Senior Partner at
Simmons Coopers, Babatunde Irukera, said he had never heard of
Ocean Trust Limited and wondered how Simmons Coopers could have
served as its company secretary.

Irukera, who is now the Executive Secretary, Consumer Protection
Council and had served as managing partner at Simmons Coopers
during the time in question, directed our correspondent to another
partner, Victoria Alonge.

Alonge told Saturday PUNCH that she had never heard of Ocean
Trust Limited and asked Saturday PUNCH for more time.

She said Simmons Coopers had checked all its records and had not
found Ocean Trust in its books, adding that it had no record with
the CAC.

When one of our correspondents dictated the contents of the
document linking Simmons Coopers with Ocean Trust, Alonge expressed
shock and asked that the document be sent to her.

She, however, maintained that Vice-President Osinbajo was a man
of honour and honesty and would never hinder the EFCC from doing
its job.

Alonge said, “Simmons Coopers has never had any dealings with
Ocean Trust. We are also doing our own investigations. We checked
our Abuja records and Ocean Trust is not stated there. This is new
to us and it cannot be insinuated that Prof Osinbajo is stopping
the EFCC from doing its job.

“For us, there is nothing to hide. As a partner, I should be in
a position to know. We are still checking our records and we
haven’t found anything.”

Culled from Punch

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