On April 4, Clara Wanjiku Odero, a Nairobi-based former executive at the Nigerian fintech unicorn Flutterwave, posted an explosive article on Medium. Odero, who until 2018 held the title of head of implementation at the company, making her responsible for its expansion into East Africa, alleged that she had been bullied and harassed by the company’s current CEO, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, that she’d had to fight to get paid after she left the company, and that the company’s “negligence” had led to her being investigated by the Kenyan police.
“I really just wanted it [the Medium post] out there, so nobody could try to intimidate me,” Odero, now CEO and founder of Softbank-backed Credrails, an open-banking startup, told Rest of World.
Over the last four weeks, Rest of World has spoken with 12 former employees of Flutterwave, who said that Odero’s allegations are reflective of what they claim are recurring issues at the company, which is valued at more than $3 billion and boasts high-profile investors that include Tiger Global, Y Combinator, Avenir Growth Capital, Visa, and Worldpay from FIS. Most of the former employees requested anonymity so they could speak freely without fear of reprisals. They alleged that the company encouraged a culture of impunity among senior executives and behavior that included bullying and inappropriate relationships between managers and staff, that the company underpaid departing employees for their stock options, and that basic administrative errors were made with company documentation, creating serious legal problems for former staff. Some of the allegations were previously reported by local investigative journalist, David Hundeyin, on April 12.
In an emailed statement to Rest of World, a Flutterwave spokesperson said, “Many of the claims that have been recently made are false, recycled, or have been previously addressed.” The spokesperson also said that the company doesn’t comment on employee matters but that it has “robust HR policies and procedures that aim to create a safe and respectful workplace for all employees. We are always reviewing those policies, and we take action as and when appropriate.”
Industry insiders told Rest of World that the overlapping scandalous allegations at Flutterwave are likely to reverberate throughout Nigeria’s startup ecosystem. Not only is the company a poster child for the country’s thriving fintech sector, its CEO, Agboola, is a leading investor in African tech, with stakes in more than 25 startups.
Several venture investors in the Nigerian tech ecosystem, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there could be a significant fallout from the allegations, particularly with the Silicon Valley venture capital community that has driven so much of Nigeria’s investment momentum for the last half a decade.
Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (who was its first CEO), Agboola (then CTO), and Adeleke Adekoya (chief compliance officer). The team had the credentials needed to bring in serious capital: Aboyeji had previously co-founded the coding jobs and training platform Andela, while Agboola had been on the tech and payments team at two large banks. They attracted early funding from companies such as Mastercard and New York–based CRE Venture Capital. Several funding rounds later, in 2021, Flutterwave hit unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation. The company is now present in 34 African countries, and its services are used by major clients, including Uber, Microsoft, and Wise. Flutterwave Store, a Shopify-type platform that allows small business owners to sell online, launched during the pandemic and now has a reported 30,000 stores signed up. In February, a series D funding round brought Flutterwave’s valuation to more than $3 billion, making it Africa’s most valuable startup.
After the company first launched, Flutterwave’s management went on a charm offensive to attract staff, former employees told Rest of World. But they also hired from within their circles, including, in 2018, Ifeoluwa Orioke, Agboola’s brother-in-law, who joined as CFO.
It was around that time that the workplace environment seemed to sour badly, according to people who worked at Flutterwave during this period. Seven former employees told Rest of World that Orioke was aggressive toward staff. They claim that he, along with other senior executives, felt able to act with impunity and to pursue sexual relationships with more-junior staff, including teammates, four former employees said.
Orioke was accused of making unwanted sexual advances to at least one female employee, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, and had consensual relationships with at least two others, one of whom reported to him, according to three former employees. “His philandering was widely known,” said one former developer manager at Flutterwave. Three former staff members allege that Orioke regularly lost his temper and screamed at his teammates. People complained to the CEO about Orioke’s behavior, sources told Rest of World, but it appeared that no meaningful action was taken.
“At one point, after I had left, I called GB [the CEO] and warned him that this guy [Orioke] was your problem,” one source, who left Flutterwave as a senior level employee a few years ago, told Rest of World. The source said Agboola responded, “I know what to do.” But Orioke remained in his position. “He’s not going to fire his wife’s brother and start family trouble,” another former employee said, referencing the fact that Agboola is married to Orioke’s sister.
Three employees who worked at the company at the time told Rest of World that Orioke was moved to the position of chief commercial officer (CCO) in 2019, after they were told investors questioned some of his financial practices. “The company termed it as a ‘promotion,’” one of the former employees said.
Orioke did not respond to Rest of World’s multiple requests for comments.
At least one other senior executive had relationships with more-junior staff, three ex-employees told Rest of World. Several former employees said that they were uncomfortable with these relationships. The company has opaque promotion and pay structures, they said, and they worried that people in romantic relationships with management might receive preferential treatment.
Allegations of harassment and concerns about relationships between staff at the startup surfaced publicly in late 2018 and early 2019, when a Twitter account, “Eko Minaj,” began posting allegations of improper conduct. The account’s holder later sent emails to staff and investors. Former employees who left before 2019 said the company’s management contacted them about the Twitter handle, looking for the source of these allegations. The allegations led Visa, which was due to lead Flutterwave’s series B investment round, to pull out, former employees said. Agboola acknowledged that an investor had pulled out as a result of the allegations in a recent interview with a local blogger, without naming the investor. The funding round had to be delayed by a year. Visa was named as an investor when the company did finally raise its series B, but not in subsequent rounds.
Visa did not respond to a request for comment.
Following the Eko Minaj allegations, in 2019, Flutterwave hired consulting firm KPMG to investigate allegations of sexual harassment and introduced a new whistleblower policy afterward. However, most people who spoke to Rest of World about this audit said they felt it was mostly cosmetic and that the findings of the investigation weren’t revealed to them. In a 2019 company all-hands meeting — a recording of which has now been widely shared on social media — Agboola told workers that he had reviewed sexual harassment policies of several big corporations domestic and abroad. “One big trend I saw was this,” Agboola said, “I think it would be very very funny that as a company, we’re also a moral judge.” He added that employees’ relationships are “their business.”
Former employees also alleged that around this time the company made significant administrative errors.
In 2019, the former CEO of the company, Aboyeji, who resigned from the board in 2018, was arrested by Nigerian police and spent a night in the cells, two people with direct knowledge of the incident told Rest of World. The police said at the time that the company had been accused of fraud, after failing to refund a customer card transaction; Aboyeji was arrested because Flutterwave had neglected to take his name off its official documentation. He was ultimately released without being charged.
In her Medium post, Odero alleges a similar thing happened to her. She had been named as the contact person for the company’s bill payment service in Kenya and for its M-Pesa mobile money account. Even though she’d left the company in November 2018, she was still listed as its contact in May 2019, when she was approached by 20 people demanding refunds after they’d paid for access to sex parties in Nairobi via Flutterwave. When it turned out the parties weren’t real, the buyers started threatening Odero. Odero was later investigated over the parties by Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigation. The experience was terrifying, she said. Odero sued Flutterwave for negligence and emotional trauma and was awarded $2,500 in damages. She is appealing, seeking a larger settlement.
Odero also accused Flutterwave of withholding payments due to her after she resigned. Several other former…
Read More: Inside the scandal at Flutterwave, Nigeria’s fintech champion