THE ongoing investigation of alleged massive fraud in the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is believed to be in the region of over N2 billion suspected to have been embezzled the union’s President, Comrade Lateef Oyelekan, and his cronies.
The scale of the fraud and allegation of embezzlement is contained in a copy of a petition written to the EFCC by two officers of NUFBTE in 2020, asking the anti-graft agency to carry out in-depth investigation of the activities of Comrade Oyelekan.
The petitioners said they suspect that Comrade Oyelekan had “been unilaterally making illegal withdrawals of the Union funds, awarding contracts worth over Two Billion Naira (N2,000,000,000) to his cronies and family members without recourse to due process as spelt out in the Union Constitution.”
The petitioners, Comrade Onoja Johnson Peter and Comrade Bamidele Busari, the then National Signing Trustee and then General Secretary respectively, of NUFBTE, in the petition entitled; “Petition Over a Case of Official Corruption, Abuse of Office, Embezzlement of Official Funds, Illegal Award of Contracts to His Cronies and Family Members, Illegal Withdrawal of Union Fund Amounting to Over Two Billion Naira (N2,000,000,000) Only and Other Official Corrupt Practices Against Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan, Akin Kareem, Wale Abiona and Others of the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees,” asked EFCC to investigate transactions carried out in operational bank accounts of the union.
The petition, which was written on behalf of the petitioners by their lawyers, Godwin Idem Esq and Tochukwu Udo, Principal Partners of TOCHUKWU UDO & CO, and dated 27th August, 2020 was addressed to then Ag. Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, enjoined the anti-graft agency to investigate the Oyelekan and his cronies from the time he assumed office in 2008 as president up to the time the petition was submitted.
“We pray the Honourable Acting Chairman as follows:
“a. To cause an indepth investigations [sic] to be carried out on the activities of the suspects, Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan (President, National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees) and his cronies.
“b. To investigate the financial misappropriation, illegal awards of contracts by the President of the Union.
“c. To investigate the transactions carried out in the six (6) operational bank accounts of the Union.
“d. To investigate the embezzlement of over Two Billion Naira (N2,000,000,000) and other embezzlement by the President of the Union and his cronies since 2008 till date.
“e. To investigate the illegal acquisition of properties, vehicles and other related illegal acquisitions jointly and severally by the Union’s President (Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan) and his cronies.
“f. To severally, jointly and specifically investigate all the activities of the suspect since 2008 till date and bring to book the financial misappropriation, official corrupt and all other official corrupt practices perpetrated by the Union’s President and his cronies,” part of the petition reads.
The petitioners promised to provide “some documentary evidence to the above claims for your perusal and necessary actions.”
In the preamble to the petition, the petitioners alleged that since 2008 when Comrade Oyelekan had become president of the union, he had refused to conduct election for change of leadership against the constitutional provision that elections be held every four years.
“That since 2008, the suspect, Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan, has been the President of the above Union (NUFBTE) and has refused election to be conducted for change of leaders of the Union.
“That the Union Constitution mandates that election into Executive offices be held every Four (4) years, but since 2008, under the leadership of the suspect, Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan as President, election attempts have been frustrated by him to unconstitutional [sic] keep him and his cronies in office for his personal and illegal abuse of office.
“That the suspect (President of the Union) has been unilaterally making illegal withdrawals of the Union funds, awarding contracts worth over Two Billion Naira (N2,000,000,000) to his cronies and family members without recourse to due process as spelt out in the Union Constitutions.
“That the Union operates six (6) Accounts with different bank. [sic] The said account [sic] details would be made available.
“That the suspect (Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan) out of his greed, vowed to remain in office as President of the Union for as long as he so desires and that no power would be able to remove him constitutional [sic] from office.
“That several moves by the Union members have been made for elections to be conducted but to no avail as all efforts are been [sic] by the Union President, rather, the President and his fact have been criminally intimidating any member who dare question his illegal activities or style of his administration of the Union,” the petition further reads.
The new petition
A source familiar with the investigation told National Record that the new petition is different from the 2020 copy only in the signatories and law firm.
According to the source, while the former petition has two signatories, the current one being acted on is signed by only one person; I have sighted it but don’t have a copy.
“I can assure you that the core details of the petition are the same. The current petition is only a fine-tuned copy of the old with such details as the bank account numbers of the union, which were not in the previous petition, but are now included in the new petition.
“While the old petition was signed by two persons, and submitted in August 2020, the current petition is signed by only one person and submitted in June this year. It is also not true that the old petition was submitted in Lagos; it was submitted in Abuja, only that the EFCC asked its Lagos operatives to investigate it but they seemed to have bungled it for whatever reasons;” our source said.
National Record exclusively reported on Wednesday how the EFCC has since last week invited and questioned key officers of NUFBTE over alleged fraud and mismanagement of the union’s funds.
While the National Treasurer of the union, Comrade Ahmed Yahaya, was interrogated last week, Comrade Oyelekan, the union’s president, and Comrade Adetona Oluwatoyin, the union’s Lagos State Council 1 are about now (Thursday evening) being grilled by a team of EFCC operatives.
The EFCC has also interrogated the Registrar of Trade Unions, Mr Falonipe Amos, over the finances of the Food Union. Mr Amos confirmed his interrogation to National Record Wednesday afternoon in a telephone chat.
The Registrar of Trade Unions said he was asked many questions on the regulatory powers of his office over trade unions including their finances. According to him, the Ministry of Labour does not directly oversee the accounts of unions but only receives reports of external auditors once every year by July as required by law.
“What we do is that the law says their [unions’] account must be audited every year by an external auditor and the external auditor will submit the report to our office. You know, me I took over about two years ago and they have been submitting reports. If I just brought out their file, the only one that has not been submitted is last year’s, because the law says it must be submitted July of the following year…like for instance, 2021 must be submitted July 2022.
“That is what the law says and the external auditor is not part of the union, so they are the ones that will audit and when they submit to us, we just look at the comments of the external auditor. That is the only regulatory power that we have over the unions,” Mr Amos stated.
