PPLAAF and its partners have uncovered two previously unknown properties in the United States linked to a Nigerian official and his family, who are currently on trial for allegedly diverting funds meant for organising national examinations.
In 2016, thousands of Nigerian students took to the streets to protest the chaotic organisation of university entrance examinations. That year was marked by massive delays and technical failures. Since its creation in the late 1970s, it was the first time that the institution responsible for the exams, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), faced such a wave of criticism, according to Nigerian media reports.
At the time, the agency was headed by an education expert and graduate of the prestigious Cornell University, Professor Lawrence Adedibu Ojerinde, widely known as “Prof. Dibu.” As the controversy unfolded, he offered numerous explanations and apologies to justify the debacle. He finally recognized that around 59,000 candidates in 15 states had been relocated because of problems in some exam centres. At the time, Prof. Ojerinde promised to organise fresh entrance exams for the affected candidates, but he eventually had to step down from the board a few months after.
Since then, Nigerian prosecutors have accused the former senior official of diverting at least 5.2 billion naira (about USD 13 million) from JAMB and another agency he led. According to the prosecution, the funds were used to acquire properties for himself and his family in Nigeria and Ghana.
An investigation by the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), conducted in partnership with the Nigerian media outlet Premium Times and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), has now uncovered two additional properties in the United States linked to his family. Located in Florida and currently valued at more than USD 1.2 million, they had not previously been listed among the assets Nigerian authorities are seeking to confiscate in the case. There are signs that members of Prof. Dibu’s family, co-conspirators in his corruption case, may have sought to keep it that way.
False identities and shell companies
These revelations come as Prof. Ojerinde, three of his children, his daughter-in-law, and six companies linked to the family are being prosecuted before a Federal High Court in Abuja.
The former senior official is accused by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, of diverting public funds throughout his career and of setting up an elaborate system to conceal what prosecutors describe as his “corrupt benefit” and “advantage”.
PPLAAF and its partners obtained the two indictments filed against the professor. The first, filed in 2021, contains 18 counts, including abuse of office and diversion of public funds. The second, issued in 2023, includes 17 counts and also names ten co-defendants: four members of his family as well as six companies linked to them.
In this second indictment, ICPC prosecutors allege that Prof. Ojerinde used six false identities to create companies and manage bank accounts in order to conceal his illicit financial activities while he was heading the National Examinations Council (NECO) and later JAMB.
“The 1st defendant took measures to conceal his ownership and active participation in the management of some of these companies and assets acquired for his corrupt benefit, by using forged documents, stolen identities and synthetic names,” prosecutors alleged.
“To perfect the stolen identities, the 1st defendant used forged documents, including a fake National Driver’s License, pictures and birthdays on several documents, including company registration records and bank mandates,” they added.
According to the ICPC, when Nigeria introduced an anti–money laundering measure requiring a unique biometric identifier for all bank account holders, Prof. Ojerinde allegedly transferred ownership, in March 2015, of some of the accounts opened under false names to his daughter-in-law.
Two unknown properties in Florida
Less than a month later, in April 2015, his daughter-in-law Mary Funmilola Ojerinde and her husband Olumide Abiodun purchased their first property for USD 380,000 in Miramar, Florida.
A second property was purchased in June 2017 in Miami by Olumide and another son, Oluwaseun, for USD 300,000. The investments have since proven profitable, as the value of the two homes has roughly doubled.
In 2019, as the ICPC was preparing to publish a list of confiscated assets, the family attempted another concealment operation. One day in May, they tried to transfer the two properties into trusts, which are legal arrangements that can shield the ultimate beneficiaries of properties from public disclosure.
The Miramar house was transferred to an entity called Lenciaga Land Trust, while the Miami property was meant to be placed under the control of Venchy Land Trust. Both of the trusts are registered to be listed at the address of the Miami property. Property records from Florida indicate that the properties were transferred using gift deeds, meaning that the homes were given at no cost. The manner in which the transfers took place also suggests a potential effort to conceal who owned the properties.
However, the transfer to the Venchy Trust never succeeded. Documents obtained by PPLAAF and its partners through a freedom of information request show that Miami-Dade County rejected the title transfer because the identity of the trustee responsible for managing the trust had not been specified.
For four years, nothing was done. In April 2023, about a month after the sons and daughter-in-law were indicted, their US lawyer asked the county for assistance in correcting the filing.
“Deed is missing the trustee over the trust. Deed need [sic] to be corrected via corrective deed,” the county had replied to the Ojerindes’ lawyer who filed the title deed transfer.
But according to public records, the Miami property still officially remains in the names of the two sons.
According to experts, in the US, these transactions could constitute federal money-laundering offences if it is proven that the intent of the transfer was to conceal or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership or control of proceeds of a specified unlawful activity.
Asset seizure at the heart of the legal battle
In Nigeria, the trials are still ongoing. On 18 February 2026, the trial of the 2023 case involving Prof. Ojerinde and his 10 co-defendants was adjourned due to the absence of the judge. As for the other case, launched by the ICPC in 2021, the trial has reportedly been stalled as settlement talks between the Ojerinde family and the ICPC continue.
For more than six years, the family’s properties in Nigeria and Ghana have been at the centre of a legal standoff. Assets which were to be seized in 2019 include a radio station, a petrol station, schools and student accommodation, luxury properties, as well as bank accounts and shares in several companies linked to the family.
To avoid criminal prosecution, the former official had initially reached an agreement with prosecutors providing for the confiscation of his assets and those held by his relatives, before reneging on the deal.
According to the prosecutors, Prof. Ojerinde’s main accomplice was Jimoh Olabisi Olatunde, his kinsman that he brought to be his accountant in both agencies. They alleged that Ojerinde instructed his accountant to siphon the money to pay for the assets that Ojerinde and his family members acquired.
After being prosecuted in 2020, Olatunde pleaded guilty and was granted a ‘Certificate of indemnity’ for his cooperation with the ICPC. However, according to the prosecutors, Ojerinde denied authorising Olatunde to divert public funds for his benefit and also denied knowledge of the fraudulent activities of his former accountant. Ojerinde said he had no idea that his former accountant was involved in corrupt practices and said he had to donate his personal property in Abuja to cover his alleged malfeasance.
Prosecutors alleged that Prof. Ojerinde encouraged the ICPC to withdraw the civil assets forfeiture proceeding in court and prosecute his former accountant instead. He also agreed to forfeit all the assets linked to him by the accountant. In addition, “each of the children also voluntarily surrendered the assets and returned the original title documents in their possession,” the prosecutors wrote in the 2023 indictment.
Later, once prosecutors had obtained a guilty plea from his former accountant, the ICPC obtained a court order for the forfeiture of a number of Prof. Ojerinde’s assets.
A letter addressed to the anti-corruption agency shows how the elderly professor conceded to give up some of the properties that the Commission had been eyeing.
“In view of the circumstances and the agreement reached with the Commission, I am ready to release to the Commission properties that were linked to me as contained in the court order. I However plead that the Commission should kindly release my properties that were not included in this court order, most of which were from my Labour over the years of serving this great country.”
However, prosecutors allege that Prof. Ojerinde “later reneged on his firm undertaking and agreements and opted to be prosecuted instead.” Worse still, he allegedly tried to sell one of the seized-properties in Ghana.
Professor Ojerinde his sons and his daughter-in-law did not respond to questions from PPLAAF, OCCRP and their partner Premium Times.
