Cellulant co-founder resigns, 14 staff sacked over corporate governance

Cellulant co-founder Bolaji Akinboro has resigned from the company over unhealthy corporate governance practices by employees under him, the company has informed BusinessDay.

In a reaction to media reports of Akinboro’s resignation, in a message to BusinessDay, Friday, the company confirmed that fourteen staff members were sacked over their involvement in the sharp practices and illegally receiving funds from Agrikore wallets.

However, reports say that several other staff voluntarily resigned from the company over their roles in the act.

“While conducting a compliance review on the Agrikore platform, we identified certain aspects of the compliance infrastructure and control framework of the platform that has not kept up with the platform’s rapid growth. An investigation revealed that fourteen Agrikore employees had inappropriately received funds from Agrikore wallets”,

“Bolaji Akinboro, as the executive in charge, took responsibility for the governance issues and resigned from all his management positions,” the company said.

The company, however, added that there is no indication that customer funds were compromised over the incident.

Cellulant further stated that it had temporarily shut down the Agrikore marketplace and informed its customers of the development, stressing that it had engaged an independent accounting firm to conduct a forensic review of marketplace wallets, while a Nigerian law firm would lead a full independent investigation of the platform.

Cellulant was founded in 2004 with Co- CEO Ken Njoroge from Kenya and in 2018, received the largest investment in the history of fintech companies in Africa with a dominant market position across 12 Sub-Saharan countries – Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Malawi.