“She Kept Lying Until She Couldn’t Deny Anymore” – Close Friend E.x.p.o.s.e.s Ovaioza

Marline Oluchi is a close friend of Imu Ovaioza Yunusa – self-acclaimed agro entrepreneur – who many people have now come to call out as a ponzi fraudster.

In this article, Oluchi who happens to have also partnered with Ovaioza in both her corn and plantain business makes deep revelations.

She wrote;

First things first, my cumulative money on the dashboard is above 27.9million naira. I am a partner in both corn and plantain, at the moment. This is not just my money but that of people under me. My family, my friends, and even some of the people I work with. So, I am not just speaking as a supposed friend now, but as a partner too.

Since all of this started, we as Ovaioza’s friends have held hope. We have believed her because, we saw her going to markets, storage facilities, milling factory, etc. Heck, my firm has drafted a lot of her business proposals, so, I’m very sure there is a business.

However, with everything that has recently come to light, with our own monies hanging in the balance, we all became critical and came together to make our own findings. We got a hold of her account statements from her auditors and fact checked a lot of her financial transactions.

Last night, myself, Chykah Bro, Ikechukwu Iyke, Kelechi Ejikeme and others went to her house to confront her with our findings and ask the hard questions. Not just as friends but as partners too. We needed clarity! Her husband and mother were present at this meeting too.

We had a meeting with her from 8pm to 3am. We were at hers till 3am. For over 7hours! We refused to go until she clarified everything we needed to know. 

We wanted the truth! I mean, common, we have hitherto left you to run your business because it is yours but with allegations of fraud, not only is our own money hanging in the balance but also our reputations as your friends. We trusted you with huge sums of our money, for trade!

Here are some established facts from our meeting last night:

1. At no point in time has Ovaioza ever told me the exact number of partners she has. Yes, I knew she had a lot but when one of us asked her a while ago, she lied that it was just over a thousand. I had no idea of the exact amount of money she was trading with and that it was this big. She had repeatedly been advised not to take on more than she can handle with sales.

2. From the documents we got from auditors, the account statements show that the money inflow did not correspond with what market people remitted. About 80% of the money coming into her account was from partners. If she actually traded with that amount, there will be money from market people showing more than this amount, right? I mean, if I get 5billion from partners and buy goods to sell for profit, I should get back more than 5billion after sales, to show that I made profit. At no point in time did any money from the market match the money collected from partners. Over 80% of money she receives came from partners and not the market. So, where have you been paying profit from?

So, while there was a good business which I saw and even helped out with occasionally when my services or help was needed, the business was not as big as she claimed. She did not trade to the tune of the amount she collected from partners. That much is certain now and she could not deny it.

3. At the meeting, some of those present were those who have worked with. It was confirmed that her books were not open even to them. She was not upfront with everyone. She will give you only what she wants you to work on. As much as I was her friend and didn’t run the business with her, I saw what she wanted me to see, but not the full picture. I mean, I have even gone to Kano with her, for market runs.

4. She mismanaged funds. There was no time she separated her personal account from her business account. All the assets she bought or fixed up, running into over a billion, was paid for directly with the same accounts used for business. We asked her how sure she was that the money she used was her 30% profit and not partners money, but she couldn’t clear this.

5. This morning, we just spoke to her most fronted market distributor and he has confirmed that at no point in time did they distribute goods that big. He too, did not know this was going on. He says he only knows and account for the specific goods he distributed. It was never at the volume of the money collected from partners.

6. When we doubled down hard on her last night, asking her to tell us if the goods she has distributed right now, can pay off everyone, the truth came out. I mean, she keeps claiming our money is tied to goods. Can we see your records for distribution? Can we have a name for your distributors? Ovaioza said that she cannot account for the amount of goods distributed. She could not!

Okay, right now, can you give us an estimate of how much goods has been distributed? She said she could not, because she’s not been following up due to SEC issues and most of the distribution was to village people who cannot write any records.

This is strange because she always sounded authoritative about managing her business system perfectly. Me, Marline, I categorically put it to her that she cannot tell us that she doesn’t know how much goods have been distributed, yet, you authoritatively tell us and partners that our goods are in the market and our money will is safe?

7. When I questioned her on mismanagement of funds for personal properties, she could not deny that funds have been mismanaged, either. That 30% huge profit from everybody was not what she used. In December when she had slight issues with payments, I believed it was because market people did not all pay and I even refrained from withdrawing. I used my money to pay the people under me and even borrowed her some money to pay off a partner. This was returned.

Pheeeeeww!

At the end of this meeting and with all the facts we had established, we asked what solution can be done to salvage this, so that people will not lose their capital. All we want is just our capital. We can be last, but the public has to be paid! Heck, we don’t mind if she deducts all previous business profits paid and just pays the balance because at this point, we can see that there was no profits made to the tune of money paid to all of us partners. If you did not trade for that volume, you could not make profit at that level.

So, what are the options?

1. She has put up her plaza for sell! Yes, she owns the plaza. It is not rented. It belongs to her. Every equipment there is on sale too. Other properties too. This will be able to balance the remaining money she will get from the actual goods distributed and ensure that she pays people. This is the proposal SEC has asked her to bring.

2. Ovaioza said SEC has given her two options: Pay or go to jail! She is already drafting a payment plan, to pay back, but it’ll be spread out.

I feel betrayed, hurt and used. I feel stüpid for not knowing something was wrong. As at February, I was still topping up in millions. For myself and my friends. I was still paying in my money. I thought the challenges she had were sales related and at some point, I even advised her to sell of the garri on ground and refund everybody so that nobody will lose their capital since market was terrible. I had no idea that SEC and all these other issues were coming.

What hurts the most is not just the possible loss, but the fact that even when we found out these things and confronted her for 7hours last night, begging her to come clean to us, she still kept lying until she couldn’t deny anymore. The lies even at this point hurt more than everything else.

So, please, if you have your way to get your money, do what you can. While she might have been truthful about an intention to pay, I cannot vouch for that, at this point.

I am making this post as partner and because every other partner out there has the right to know what’s happening to their money.

I will be taking action to see if I can recover my own money too. If you deduct profits from my 27.9million, I still have plenty millions hanging in there. How on earth will I start repaying people?