New reporting has emerged of how Seyi Tinubu, the son of Nigeria’s President-elect Bola Tinubu, bought an $11 million London mansion that President Buhari was seeking to confiscate as part of a probe into one of the biggest corruption scandals in the nation.
According to Bloomberg, while there’s no suggestion that Bola Tinubu was personally involved in the acquisition of the UK property in 2017, evidence from corporate documents show for the first time that Tinubu’s 37-year-old son Oluwaseyi, is the main shareholder of Aranda Overseas Corp., an offshore company that paid £9 million ($10.8 million) to Deutsche Bank for the property in North London in late 2017.
“The private three-floor residence in St. John’s Wood — a district favored by American bankers — is equipped with an eight-car driveway, two gardens, electric gates and a gym,” the report reads.
It adds that the property was acquired from Kola Aluko, an allegedly corrupt businessman and crude oil magnate, who has for decades been linked with Diezani Alison-Madueke–a former minister of petroleum in Nigeria–who fled the country after Buhari assumed the reins of power from Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
Buhari visited Tinubu in that house
In June 2016, a federal judge in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja, granted a request by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) 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.
The EFCC said the buildings “were suspected to have been purchased with the proceeds of crime” and Aluko “fled the country” to avoid answering the fraud allegations against him, according to court filings.
Current and outgoing Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari, paid Tinubu a courtesy visit at the house in August 2021, nearly four years after the purchase took place.
Tinubu was recuperating from a knee surgery in London at the time.
In October 2021, Premium Times revealed that the shareholders and directors of Aranda, from its formation 24 years ago until at least 2010, were Adegboyega Oyetola, the former governor of Osun state; and Elusanmi Eludoyin, head of a Nigerian property group.
71-year-old Tinubu, who was declared winner of Nigeria’s Presidential election in February, has been dogged by corruption allegations throughout his adult and political life.
In 1993, Tinubu forfeited $460,000 to resolve a lawsuit in Chicago after US federal authorities said that bank accounts in his name held the proceeds of heroin trafficking. Tinubu’s lawyers and spokespersons say he was never charged over the matter.
Allegations have also trailed Tinubu’s real estate dealings in Lagos, especially while he served as governor of the state from 1999 to 2007; while concerns have been raised about his dual nationality, perjury claims and a past claimed to be littered with subterfuge, surreptitious moves and mendacity.