Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has chosen to keep mum over reports that Simmons Coopers Partners, a company in which he has a stake, has links with Ocean Trust Limited, which was recently implicated in an alleged N100 billion scam involving Alpha Beta Consulting Limited and Alpha Beta LP.
“Ocean Trust Limited, which was accused of being a conduit for diversion and laundering of funds by Alpha Beta, listed Simmons Coopers as its company secretary,” Punch reported on Saturday, July 13, 2019, citing documents obtained by it from the Corporate Affairs Commission.
“Simmons Coopers was listed as a company in which Prof Yemi Osinbajo (now Vice-President) had a stake in his asset declaration form in 2015, according to the statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu,” the paper reported.
It recalled: “In a petition submitted to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in July 2018, Dapo Apara, the erstwhile managing director of Alpha Beta, had alleged that Alpha Beta owed the Federal Government N100 billion in unpaid taxes spanning over 10 years, adding that the firm usually laundered funds through another firm, Ocean Trust Limited.
He alleged that the firm was being protected by powerful politicians.”
Saturday PUNCH said that when contacted on the relationship between Osinbajo’s firm, Simmons Coopers, and Ocean Trust, the Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media, Mr Laolu Akande, said he would not comment on the matter unless the paper showed him the document indicating Simmons Coopers was Ocean Trust’s company secretary.
