Report: How Seyi Tinubu’s firm acquired $11m UK property under EFCC probe

A Bloomberg investigation has linked Seyi, the son of President-elect Bola Tinubu, to the purchase of a “fraud-tainted” $10.8 million property in London, UK. 

Seyi was said to have purchased the property in 2017 through Aranda Overseas Corp. — an offshore company he is named as a main shareholder. 

The investigation maintained that there is no suggestion that Tinubu “was personally involved” in the acquisition of the property. A 2021 report by Premium Times however said Tinubu resided in the property during a medical trip to London. 

According to the Bloomberg report, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), in 2016, secured an order to seize the property, among others, from Kola Aluko, an ally of Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum.

“Early in Buhari’s first term, his administration initiated legal cases against Diezani Alison-Madueke, who served as oil minister for five years until 2015, and two businessmen — Aluko and Olajide Omokore — who won lucrative contracts during her tenure,” the report reads in part.

“The US government said in a 2017 forfeiture lawsuit filed in Texas that the pair bribed the minister by funding her “lavish” lifestyle and failed to pay the state energy company for most of the crude they received. 

“In June 2016, a federal judge in the capital, Abuja, granted a request by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to seize more than a dozen properties that Aluko had acquired in Nigeria and abroad, including the one in St. John’s Wood. That forfeiture order was still in force when Tinubu’s son bought the house out of receivership 16 months later.”

Bloomberg said President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesperson and Alison-Madueke’s lawyer declined to comment on the investigation.

The spokespersons for Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and the EFCC were also said to have failed to comment on the report.