The Nigeria Police Force has detained Comrade Segun Oluwasanmi, a former employee of Alpha-Beta Consulting Limited, following his allegations of corruption and tax evasion against the firm.
A relative of Oluwasanmi told SaharaReporters on Thursday that he was detained on Wednesday at the State Intelligence Department (SID) Command Headquarters in Ikeja, Lagos.
“Comr Segun Oluwasanmi was detained yesterday (14/01/25) by the SID command headquarters, Ikeja. According to the IPO, he’s going to be arraigned in court today (15/01/26), but the court is yet to be disclosed,” the relative said.
The family member added that Oluwasanmi was briefly allowed to contact his family and legal counsel shortly before his detention.
“He was just asked to call his family and lawyer when they decided to detain him few minutes to 7 p.m. yesterday,” the source said.
According to the family, police informed them that the arrest was over an allegation of cyberbullying against Alpha-Beta Consulting.
“They claimed his offence was cyberbullying against Alpha-Beta. We knew he was arrested for exposing the corruption in the company,” the relative added.
Oluwasanmi’s arrest followed a series of petitions and public allegations against Alpha-Beta Consulting, a private firm contracted by the Lagos State Government to collect taxes and revenue.
The petitions were reportedly submitted to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), with copies sent to the Federal and Lagos State Ministries of Finance through the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR).
In his petition, Oluwasanmi accused Alpha-Beta Consulting of systematic tax evasion, alleging that staff salaries were split to reduce tax liabilities.
He alleged, “What Alpha-Beta has been doing is this: they divided our salary into two, so that they will not pay tax on everything.
“What you will see in the payroll, especially up to 2022, is half of my salary. They were paying tax only on part of our salaries, and even on that part, they were underpaying.”
He explained that by reflecting only part of workers’ salaries on payroll, taxes were calculated on a reduced base and allegedly under-remitted.
“You are paying tax on the salary you divided into two. You are paying tax on one part. The part you are paying tax on, you are also still underpaying,” he said.
Internal Memo Allegedly Confirms Under-Remittance
Oluwasanmi attached internal company correspondence to his petition, including a memo dated April 30, 2024, signed by Anjolaoluwa Grace Ige, Head of Human Capital Management, which reportedly revealed that an audit by the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) uncovered under-remittance of tax.
In earlier interviews, Oluwasanmi alleged that after he began exposing fraud, he faced victimisation and harassment within the firm.
“I joined, and I was exposing fraud,” he said.
He claimed irregularities across departments, including procurement, alleging inflated contracts and preferential treatment.
“Within six months, he had inflated contracts in his care to the tune of over six million. I did the investigation. I have the reports,” he said of a procurement manager.
He also cited price inflation in supplies. He said, “For instance, a carton of printing paper was sold for ₦5,900. They bought it for ₦9,600. That’s an extra ₦3,700 on one carton.”
Oluwasanmi said his whistleblowing initially earned him commendations.
“I won ₦1,000,000 in 2019… he mentioned to everybody that he liked what I was doing,” he said, adding that he also received a reward for uncovering excessive cloud service payments.
However, he alleged that his relationship with the company deteriorated after he accused the Chief Technology Officer of forging his signature.
He stated, “I resigned on November 6 after they replied and asked me to report to Olumide, the CTO, who forged my signature.
“That was where he confessed to copying my signature, but they never released the report despite my follow-ups.”