Africa’s most valued startup, Flutterwave, is currently embroiled in a scandal involving unethical business practices and securities fraud. Insider trading, arbitrarily inflating and deflating stock prices, non-payments to partners, bullying, and hiring an employee’s law firm are all allegations against the company.
David Hundeyin, a Nigerian investigative journalist and the founder of the West Africa Weekly Newsletter, tweeted on April 12, 2022, that he started working on a story about the Nigerian payment company six months ago.
Hundeyin alleges that the payment company and its CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, are guilty of unethical business and personal practices in his investigative piece “Flutterwave: The African Unicorn Built On Quicksand.”
Based on the evidence contained in the story, Hundeyin claims that Agboola invented a fictitious “co-founder” identity known as “Greg” to grant himself additional shares in 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. These employee stock transactions, according to Hundeyin, went to a CEO-controlled investment entity.
Agboola also allegedly did not disclose to his previous employer, Access Bank, that he was simultaneously working for them as Head of Digital Factory & Innovation while building Flutterwave, thereby abusing his position and assets at the bank. There was also speculation of sexual relationships with subordinate female employees.
These allegations come just 7 days after Clara Wanjiku Odero, a former Flutterwave employee, accused Agboola of bullying and harassment in a Medium post that was quickly followed by a flurry of tweets.
According to Hundeyin’s story, Agboola traveled to Washington DC with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (Flutterwave’s former Managing Director) and Herbert Wigwe (CEO of Access Bank) to give false testimony to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that Agboola never worked simultaneously at Flutterwave and Access Bank.
However, Aboyeji says in a series of tweets that the Access Bank leadership was aware that Agboola and Adeleke Adekoya (a co-founder of Flutterwave) were working on Flutterwave.
Responding to Hundeyin’s assertions that he was a “front” for Agboola and was terminated by the company, Aboyeji tweeted: “By my hand, I incorporated Flutterwave May 2, 2016 (while I was still at Andela by the way) and by my hand, I resigned with a letter dated Oct 12, 2018. Every single necessary evidence has been preserved because I conducted myself with the highest integrity.”
Aboyeji also claimed to have evidence to support his tweet but is yet to respond to my enquiry on obtaining the referenced evidence. Similarly, neither Flutterwave nor its CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, have addressed the allegations.
Ethical breaches in business can significantly harm a company’s credibility, and how a company responds reveals a lot about its underlying processes and principles. Fingers crossed, Flutterwave responds adequately to these allegations, but much more, how much of a threat is this to the African tech ecosystem as a whole? And, how fast can we rise above this like our Silicon Valley counterparts?
