SAN FRANCISCO, January 10, (THEWILL) – The crisis rocking the Ocean Marine Security Limited has blossomed into a full-scale battle as a director of the firm, Dr. Tunde Ayeni, has dragged the company’s chairman, Capt. Hosa Okunbo, to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), accusing him of “mismanagement, stealing and criminal diversion” of the company’s fund.
In a petition dated December 7, 2020 and sent to the Acting Chairman of the anti-graft agency by a law firm, Falana & Falana Chambers, copy of which was sighted by THEWILL, Ayeni alleged that Okunbo was trying to use the gentlemen’s arrangement they had when he had issues with the EFCC over his involvement with the defunct Skye Bank to forcefully takeover his holdings of the Company whose monthly income, according to him, is about $9 million.
The petitioner alleged that he had since discovered “a lot of stealing and diversion as well as gross mismanagement of large sums of money belonging to the Company,” adding that when he confronted Capt. Okunbo, he had no defence whatsoever but claimed that he had bought him (Ayeni) out of the company and that he cannot complain.
Ayeni therefore implored the anti-graft agency to investigate his allegations towards ensuring that he was not cheated out of the company by Okunbo.
The 14-page petition petition, titled “Request for Investigation of Stealing and Criminal Diversion of Company Fund,’ reads: “We are Solicitors to Dr. J.O. Ayeni (hereinafter referred to as “our client”) on whose behalf we write this letter in respect of the above subject matter.
“Owing to the mismanagement, stealing and diversion of the fund belonging to a company called Ocean Marine Security Limited, we have our client’s instructions to request your office to investigate the complaints which are briefly stated as follows: 1. Sometime in 2007, a group consisting our client, Captain Idahosa Wells Okunbo (also referred to as Capt. Hosa Okunbo), Admiral Joe Aikhomu represented by his father – Chief Alfred Aikhomu and Garth Dooley came together to form a company called Ocean Marine Security Ltd.
“The company was incorporated by our client’s office on the 31st of January 2007. The company is now known as Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd. The shares in the ownership of the Company stand in the following order: A. B. Capt. Hose Okunbo -46% Tunde Ayeni – 35%
C. D. Garth Dooley – 14% Admiral Augustus Aikhomu – Originally had 5% but was subsequently reacquired by the duo of Capt. Hosa and our client after his demise.
“At the inception of the company our client and Capt. Okunbo agreed to appoint Admiral Augustus Aikhomu as the Chairman while Capt. Hosa Okunbo and Garth Dooley were appointed the Vice Chairman and pioneer Managing Director of the Company respectively. 4. “Following the death of the founding Chairman, Capt. Hosa Okunbor was elected as the Chairman while our client became the Vice Chairman. 5. In the course of the operation of the Company, the name was changed Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd (OMS) while the company acquired and incorporated the following subsidiary Companies: i. PPP Fluid Mechanics Ltd ii. Oms Pipeline Ltd iii. Gyro Air Ltd iv. Secured Anchorage Ltd. 6. Our client and Capt. Hosa Okunbo also invested in Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company Plc. (IBEDC) and Yola Electricity Distribution Company Plc. (YEDC) but the YEDC was later surrendered to the Federal Government while IBEDC was kept in the partners’ portfolio and all related individual shares and investment. Sometime in 2016, the Central Bank of Nigeria through regulatory intervention took over Skye Bank Plc. which is now Polaris Bank Ltd, a Bank where our client served as a non-Executive Chairman till June, 2016 shortly before the takeover. “After the takeover of the Bank by the CBN, the Bank under the new Management wrote a petition alleging certain infractions by the past Board and Management of the Bank which eventually led to the institution of criminal proceeding at both the Federal High Court and FCT High Court Abuja in late 2018.
“Our client became very distracted from the day to day operations of the Company because of an almost daily requirement of his presence at either the EFCC, the offices of his lawyers and the Courts. 10. During the period, the Company had a payment challenge from the Central Bank as it also works for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC and its subsidiary NPDC as a result of which some of the payments are denominated in United States Dollars and as such the payments come through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“At that juncture, Capt. Hosa Okunbo attributed difficulties in the payment of the invoices owing to our client’s prosecution by the EFCC as it was said to be a compliance issue. Similarly, some of our client’s personal loans and group loans attributable to the businesses he was involved in with Skye Bank Plc. were transferred to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) which was also mounting pressure on him to settle some of the obligations that were falling due. Such information was known to Capt. Hosa Okunbo because our client took him into confidence. 12. In the course of the business, Capt. Hosa Okunbo introduced one Mr. Nedd Nwoko to the Company who was said to have a contract with the Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) in respect of the Paris club refund and that his fee was 20% of the fund. He had requested OMS to fund the transaction process for him which he put at $5million and proposed to pay the company at success the sum of $30million. Our client and Capt. Hosa Okunbo funded him at various times to the tune of $6m. 13. Capt. Hosa Okunbo claimed that only $4.5 million was paid which was less than the money given to Mr. Nedd Nwoko because the Nigeria Governors Forum reduced his payment and he could not afford the commitment.
“Capt. Hosa Okunbo suggested to our client to accept the money to reduce the pressure from AMCON which he obliged as this was the practice in the Company – any particular Director in need is sometimes advanced sums of money ahead of others. “Subsequently, Capt. Hosa Okunbo told our client that all accounts of the businesses that he was involved in for which he was a signatory was being rumored to be closed because of the trial our client was facing and it was important for him to step aside from the Ocean Marine and its subsidiaries structure and handover to him so that he could protect the income sources as that was the only source of income with which to fund the faithful repayment of the gross liabilities which were well over $150million owed to a consortium of Banks led by Polaris Bank over the acquisition of the IBEDC and the YEDC discos as at the time. 15. Our client agreed to the advice and did not doubt Capt. Hosa Okunbo’s sincerity and intention to act in good faith based on the trust our client had in him as they had both been working and partnering together since July, 2003. 16. The Legal adviser of OMS, one Mnena, who was employed in OMS by our client was the one that brought the documents to our client to sign. She was supposed to bring alongside a document signed in our client’s favour to return to the Board after our client would have resolved the EFCC matters. 17. On the fateful morning that the lawyer brought the documents to our client she did not bring the other document specifying that the shares were to be held in trust. Hence, our client refused to sign and requested her to bring the complete documents. Not too long that same day, our client was on his way to the EFCC office from his house when Capt. Hosa Okunbo came with the document and requested our client to sign as it was a matter of emergency. This incidence was in the presence of the Managing Director/CEO of ASO as Plc., because he was to go with our client to the EFCC office and Capt. Hosa Okunbo came with the document and said he should trust him and sign while the other documents would be brought to him later. On the basis of the promise our client signed and he took them and it was also sent to our client’s wife to sign, she in fact was made to sign the document at the Lagos Airport so that the changes could be made before the said action of the EFCC. 18.
“Following from the above, on several occasions our client asked the lawyer for the other document and a copy of the signed document was never given to our client. It now became clear to him that he was deceived into signing a document for A2 billion even though he only received Nlbillion from the Company about a month and a half before the issue of the gentlemen’s arrangement between Capt. Hosa Okunbo and our client ever came for discussion and at no point was an actual sale of his interest in Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates ever discussed but Capt. Hosa Okunbo is trying to use the gentlemen’s arrangement to forcefully takeover his holdings of the Company whose monthly income is about $9million. 19. However, since the suggestion was effected our client does not receive emails and briefings from the group in respect of the businesses and finances any longer but our client was getting the monthly allowance they had agreed to be paying themselves and his wife’s monthly allowance which was $350,000 and about A112.5million for our client and $25,000 for his wife. Even for this monthly payment he asked our client to provide an account in which he was not a Director or signatory. He did so and his monthly allowances were regularly being paid until September, 2020 when the payment completely stopped due to apparent irreconcilable differences bordering on financial impropriety of Capt. Hosa Okunbo. 20. Our client has since discovered a lot of stealing and diversion as well as gross mismanagement of large sums of money belonging to the Company. When our client confronted Capt Hosa Okunbo he had no defence whatsoever but claimed that he had bought our client out of the Company and that he cannot complain. This is a company where Capt Hosa Okunbo owns 46%, our client 35%, Garth Dooley 14% and Admiral Joe Aikhomu 5%. 21.
Capt. Hosa Okunbo now claims that our client is no longer entitled to any share in the Company’s revenues because of the A1 billion (utilized in initially settling the EFCC on his behalf) which was part of the $4.5million paid through him to our client by Nedd Nwoko, which was tied to the agreement our client signed with him to avoid the EFCC from closing down the account, (a story he brought and sold to our client in the first place). 22. Furthermore, sometimes in July, 2020, one of our client’s partners told him of a discrepancy which had been noticed in the accounting records leading to an unauthorized withdrawal of $10 million and $8 million respectively. Capt. Hosa Okunbo had claimed to them that he had spent the sum to settle a Senate hearing on one of the subsidiary companies, the Secured Anchorage Area (SAA) and that $8million was spent in the Presidency on the same issue because of the dispute between him and the Ministry of Transport/ Nigerian Ports Authority which our client consider to be unreasonable because, the total annual profit achieved on the SAA was about $5million.
You will agree with our client that the claim that Capt. Hosa Okunbo spent $18million on influence peddling without discussing it with our client 5 amounts to diversion as it makes no sense at all. More so, that the story of the amount he claimed to have spent has continued to change by the day from $1million to $2million to $4million to $6million until he made them to input in the records $10million for the Senate hearing and $8million for the Presidency. “Further discoveries of unapproved and irreconcilable expenditure and diversion of Company incomes in the following order are provided below: Capt. Hosa Okunbo has moved the company account from Polaris Bank to Stanbic IBTC and abandoned the loan repayment commitment by OMS to the Consortium of Banks that funded the acquisition of Yola and Ibadan Discos. The loan as at today is about $100million and no single repayment of interest and principal has been made into the account for over one and a half years. It is instructive to bring this very important point to the attention of the authorities because our client was involved in helping the company to secure this facility while he was the Chairman of Skye Bank. These were part of the challenges our client had after his departure from the Bank as an insider loan, and as at now that Capt. Idahosa Okunbo sits on the Board of IBEDC holding his shares.
“Capt. Idahosa Okunbo was a director on the Board of IBEDC until a few months ago when he resigned and replaced himself with his younger brother, Mr. Kingsley Okunbo, but he refused to pay the money meant to the acquisition of the Company but rather has been stealing it and diverting same to his personal use and to fund his political activities in the just concluded Edo State Governorship election. Our client therefore does not want to suffer twice when the authorities will come after the Company and its owners over diversion of Company income and concealment of information from the Banks that the Company is obligated to. 3. There was a time Capt. Hosa Okunbo brought a project of making a movie on Oil spill in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. He told our client the cost will be $7million to which he put in his personal money of over $3million. He later told our client that it will require a total $25million after the company had already put in the money needed for the investment. It was only about two (2) months ago that our client got to know the truth through one Jeta Amata and Mr. Lorenzo that the actual cost was $7million.
“Capt. Hosa Okunbo was able to cheat our client by opening a mail account in the United States and an operations account, so he moved money from OMS account in Nigeria to the main account to which he was the sole signatory out of which he now moved a part of it to the operational account. Our client never knew any of this until the two the (2) gentlemen above opened up and told him how Capt. Hosa Okunbo diverted the resources of the Company to play gambling in Las Vegas and on some importations from China. 4. Capt. Hosa Okunbo only declared $4.5million and only recently our client discovered that he was actually paid the full $30million but he lied and diverted the money. Diversion of the loan of N500m to Gen. Boro the then Coordinator of the Niger Delta Amnesty program. Our client was informed that the money was subsequently repaid to OMS through Capt. Hosa Okunbo and two vehicles were recovered by him. He took possession of it and never paid it back to the Company. 6. Capt. Hosa Okunbo borrowed $2million from OMS and took it to Liberia to fund the current Liberian President’s election. He has refused to pay back the sum to the company. 7. Unauthorized sale of OMS Challenger Aircraft for the sum of $5.5million and diversion of the money to his personal farm in Benin, which he has refused to pay back to the Company. 8. Capt. Hosa Okunbo borrowed the sum of $1million from the Company account which he has willfully refused to pay back to the Company. The Company through Capt. Hosa Okunbo made available the sum of $5million to Dr. John Abebe for a 5% share in an oil blocks with Star Oil.
“He has refused to provide details of the document of the investment. 10. Capt. Hosa Okunbo has illegally taken unauthorized amount of money from the company account to fund the just concluded Edo State election of one of the candidates without our client’s consent. From preliminary information our client has been informed that he spent about $18million in this process, as a result of which our client requested a forensic audit of the accounts of the company and the subsidiaries which Capt. Hosa Okunbo has taken full control of.
“There are some officers of the company who have colluded with Capt. Hosa Okunbo to perpetrate the brazen acts of fraud in the company. They include (a) Mr. Kunle Oyelakun who is currently the Group Managing Director. (b) Mr. Martins Onayo who is an accountant in the Abuja Office of the Company (c) Ms. Mnena who is the Company’s in-house Lawyer. 12. Capt. Hosa. Okunbo was able to execute some of these fraudulent practices with the connivance of one other director – Mr. Garth Dooley who has always, of late, agreed to everything he says and desires. 13. Of recent, our client held a meeting with Capt. Hosa Okunbo’s. Lawyer in person of Mr. Austin Alegeh SAN, where it was agreed that a valuation of Ocean Marine and its subsidiary Companies and other companies where parties hold individual shares be carried out. Unfortunately, while this discussion was still ongoing information reached our client that Capt. Hosa Okunbo has embarked on transactions and asset transfers from Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd and the Pipeline Company. 14.
“Capt. Hosa Okunbo has also recently unilaterally appointed his son in-law as the Acting Chairman of the company without observing due process so as to aid his continuous diversion of the resources of the Company. 15. He has equally diverted a huge sum of resources from the Company to fund the transaction of OML 65 which is an Oil Asset transaction with NPDC but has only given Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd 5% of the transaction while all the funding is from the incomes of Ocean Marine Solutions Ltd. 16. He has diverted substantial part of the Company’s money to fund some of his personal expenses such as his placing family members on a monthly salary and some Traditional Rulers that have nothing to do with the business of the Company as well as the payment of the salary of workers in his private company such as his farm land in Benin, Edo State and thereby looting the fund of the company. It is on the strength of the above that we humbly submit this petition for thorough investigation to facilitate the recovery of the legitimate shares and earnings which our client is entitled to but which have been cornered by Capt. Hosa Okunbo without any lawful justification. While our client pledges to cooperate with your team of investigators to unearth the monumental fraud perpetrated by Capt. Hosa Okunbo and his cohorts please accept the assurances of our highest esteem and professional regards. “
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