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Aaron Greenspan
The next interesting fact about Bola Tinubu is that he doesn't appear in the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, or the Pandora Papers. He's not even in Bahamas Leaks or Offshore Leaks, as far as I can tell. Why is that? It seems curious for someone who seems to have got his start as an accountant with knowledge of international banking and shell companies. After all, he's been setting them up just about since graduating from college in Chicago.
It's probably because Tinubu has been following the Putin model of money laundering: don't put any of the money in your own name (especially after you've been caught doing that), and make sure to launder a lot through your local oil company. Here's how that works.
First, you find yourself a relative you can trust—say, a niece or a nephew. Someone like Jubril Adewale "Wale" Tinubu. Preferably, that relative has some kind of legitimate business so that if anyone asks how they got so rich, there's a plausible explanation—say, an oil company. Wale Tinubu just happens to run Oando Plc, which describes itself as "one of Africa's largest integrated energy solutions provider with a proud heritage."
Did I mention that Wale Tinubu shows up in the Panama Papers *and* the Paradise Papers *and* the Pandora Papers?
That could mean that Wale is just really fond of setting up shell companies for his own oil riches, and I mean, would you trust your local Nigerian bank with that kind of money? I sure wouldn't. So that might make some sense. But then we get to this other curious fact.
In 2020, Bola Tinubu was sued for using his stake in a company that collected taxes in Lagos state, where he was previously governor—ahem—to siphon off funds to a variety of shell companies. These were Bola Tinubu's funds, to be clear. One of the companies alleged to have been involved in this scheme was "Ocean and Oil Investments Ltd. ("Oando"). Curious, no? You can see the complaint here:  Apara (Infiniti Systems Enterprises) v. Alpha-Beta Consulting LLP et al, High Court of Lagos State Case No. LG/7330GCMW/2020. Sadly, not much else is available because the Lagos judiciary isn't so great about transparency it seems.
So, to sum up, Bola Tinubu has a nephew who runs an oil company and whose oil company's name shows up in a list of companies used to siphon off money from a private corporation in which Tinubu had a stake that had a government contract with Tinubu's government to collect taxes from the Nigerian public that had no idea that any of this was going on. Pretty slick.
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March 30, 2023 at 11:35 AM EDT •  Reply |
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