The axe has fallen and it has cut deeper than expected. That Wale Tinubu, the Group Chief Executive Officer of OandO and his deputy, Mofe Boyo, have been removed from their lofty positions and barred from holding directorship positions in a public company for the next five years by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), is no longer a hot-button issue. The Commission further directed that some members of the board of the OandO group should resign immediately while instructing payment of monetary penalties to affected individuals and directors.
This is coming on the heels of the SEC investigation into two petitions by the commission in 2017 against the company. According to SEC, “Certain infractions of securities and other relevant laws were observed. The commission further engaged Deloitte & Touche to conduct a forensic audit of the activities of Oando Plc. The general public is hereby notified of the conclusion of the investigations of Oando Plc.
If the OandO top-shots’ fate sounds like a death knell, it was long expected. At the height of the company’s glory, Tinubu particularly became a nonsense man which ostracised him from certain powerful circles that could have come to his rescue at this critical period. But he reportedly wasted a lot of goodwill based on his lifestyle. Now, there’s virtually nowhere to run to.
More shocking, perhaps, is that his uncle, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the former Governor of Lagos State and National Leader of the ruling All Progressives’ Congress, APC, is also helpless at the turn of events. The older Tinubu, who is battling for his political future, now chooses his battles and is reportedly uncomfortable with the kind of man the OandO boss has become over the years.
Indeed, only Asiwaju, a kingmaker of sort by African political standards, could have used his contacts and connections to bail the company out of this quagmire but he has stayed aloof, allowing events to take their natural course as Wale and Mofe battle to retrieve what is left of their integrity, reputation and multi-billion dollar company that they built virtually from scratch.
