Aranda Overseas Corp., a firm owned by the son of Nigeria’s President-elect Bola Tinubu, has purchased an $11 million mansion in London, according to previously unreported UK company documents.
The property was previously owned by Kolawole Aluko, who is accused of owing the country an oil-trading debt worth more than $1.5 billion.
The Nigerian government was seeking to confiscate the property and other assets that it suspected Aluko had acquired with profits from crime.
According to Bloomberg, a corporate document shows that Tinubu’s 37-year-old son Oluwaseyi is the main shareholder of Aranda Overseas Corp. There is no suggestion that President-elect Bola Tinubu was personally involved in the acquisition of the UK property in 2017.
Tinubu, who will take over as head of state this month, has long been questioned about the source of his family’s wealth, including throughout the recent election campaign, when he and his representatives were pressed about it by local and international media.
In response to questions about the source of his family’s wealth, Tinubu and his campaign have said that he made his fortune before going into politics by inheriting real estate, investing well, and working as an accountant at Deloitte LLP and an executive at the Nigerian subsidiary of Mobil Oil in the 1980s and early 1990s.
In an interview with the BBC in the run-up to the election, Tinubu cited Warren Buffett as an example he followed to become rich.
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 property was purchased by Aranda Overseas Corp. for £9 million ($10.8 million) from Deutsche Bank in late 2017.
Bola Tinubu’s spokesman and Oluwaseyi Tinubu did not respond to emails, phone calls and text messages seeking comment. A British lawyer listed as Aranda’s agent in the UK declined to comment citing confidentiality rules.
While Buhari was elected on a pledge to tackle widespread graft, the country’s ranking in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index has deteriorated over the past eight years. Buhari visited Tinubu in the London mansion in August 2021, according to the Lagos-based Premium Times.
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. Oyetola’s spokesman and Eludoyin did not respond to requests for comment.
Documents filed this year in response to new anti-money laundering rules in the UK and seen by Bloomberg show that Tinubu’s son, an entrepreneur active in advertising who played a prominent role in his father’s presidential campaign, has been in control of British Virgin Islands-registered Aranda since June 2011. The company registered as an overseas entity in the UK on Jan. 20.
Tinubu, 71, won an election in February as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress and is scheduled to succeed his political ally Buhari on May 29. He was a key powerbroker in the merger of opposition parties that brought the current head of state to office in 2015.
Tinubu has long been dogged by allegations of graft and rule-breaking, which he denies. In 1993, he forfeited $460,000 to resolve a lawsuit in Chicago after US federal authorities said that bank accounts
