By Vincent Ujumadu
Chief Aderemi Adedoye, who is the immediate past Commissioner of Police in Anambra State has been in the news since he was pulled out of the Nigeria Police Force after 35 years of service.
During the ceremony in Awka, Adeoye, who joined the Nigeria Police as a constable even though he had a university degree, told his audience at the Alex Ekwueme Square how an investment company he founded with some Facebook friends, is now worth about N20 billion.
Adeoye had said that with his retirement, he would go full-time into business and would not bother himself going into security consultancy as many retired security operatives usually do.
Following the controversy that has trailed his pronouncement on the investment outfit, tongues started wagging as to how the retired CP had time to engage himself in such a multi-million naira venture. On Friday, Adeoye was a guest on Arise News TV to explain everything about the business.
He said: “The people of Anambra State knew that I did my work diligently. It has never happened in the history of Anambra State that a retiring CP should be conferred with two chieftaincy titles by two communities and a street named after me.
I am Nnwane Di na mba 1 of Omasi Kingdom and I am Dike Ochiogha 1 of Ogbunka Kingdom. I received these titles within a space of one week. The street named after me is by the Governor’s Lodge in Awka. Africa Trust Magazine declared me Man of the Year and went down memory lane to capture what we did in terms of security. So I did not abuse my office. I served for 35 years without attracting any query.”
Asked to clarify the operations of the controversial outfit he has been managing and the ownership structure of the organization, Adeoye said:
“The name of this organization is Alfa Trust Investment Club. Our loan arm is registered as Artic Cooperative Multipurpose Society Limited, which is registered with the Lagos State Government. We carry on investment under the business name of Artic Ventures and Business Services and that is the name that is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). We would have liked to register our full name as it is, but CAC did not approve that.
“Basically when we started in 2018, all the 177 founding members were my Facebook friends and they were drawn from an investment forum where I had lectured for free for years. The members requested that this thing we are doing as a hubby assist somebody and that we can pull resources together to do some legal investment. I was mandated to set the process in motion to ensure that everyone who would participate would willingly do so. The 177 members were then migrated to the Investment outfit. Subsequently, on a yearly, basis, we admit members.
These my friends invited their family members and friends to join. That is how we grow. We don’t solicit for membership. For five years of our existence, we have paid dividends every year without fail. Our purpose is to invest, not to do business.
So we don’t have an office, we don’t have overhead costs, we don’t have employees, we don’t pay salaries, we don’t have a generator, we don’t have official cars, The only thing the officials of the club spend is their data which is seen as their contributions to the growth of the club. The only thing we spend money on is organizing our physical meetings and this is paid for by membership dues, which is N5000 per member, per annum.
“For anybody to be a member, he must be a Nigerian, irrespective of where he resides in the world. The person must have visible means of livelihood which is verified. Usually, we demand to see a workplace identity card and we go further to verify it we do background checks and we insist that any member we admit must not have any criminal record.
“Those who have pending matters with EFCC are excluded. The majority of our members are Nigerian professionals all over the world. Once admitted, the person indicates the number of shares he or she wants to buy, subject to a minimum of 50,000 units”.
On whether the outfit has audited accounts, Adeoye said the organization is only an outline investment entity.
“We have a registered business address, which belongs to one of the members of the Board of Trustees. But we don’t run costs on it because everything we do is online. When members pull funds together, we use it to buy shares from the Nigeria Stock Exchange and we invest in landed properties in Estates promoted by renowned developers all over the country, and that is what has yielded the money we have today.
“We bought hundreds of plots at N750,000 per plot in 2019 and today each plot is worth N12 million. It is determined by the market price. We subscribed for 600 plots and in Ibeju Lekki we subscribed for five plots.
We are not a publicity quoted company; we are an investment company. We are not answerable to anybody, except to our members, the BOT and the management for our record, unless you bring a court order for us to account to you. Everything we do is published for our members to read. At the AGM, our accounts are approved. We have never invited external auditors to audit our books and every member is satisfied with our books.
It was some greedy members who said they wanted the accounts to be rendered and we said no problem, but that the procedure must be followed.”
He added: “My job never suffered from my attention. I keep awake every night to get information from my command and I respond accordingly, and the evidence is there.”
On the allegation that he is operating a Ponzi scheme, Adeoye stated: “Our outfit is not a Ponzi scheme, Ponzi scheme, means collecting money from new members to pay old ones. We don’t do that. Any money paid by new members is used to pay for the lands we have bought. Running a loan scheme is a feature of every cooperative society.
The loans, which can be up to N1 million are payable in nine months and we have had zero default in the last five years. We also have a land auction system where members who buy at a cheap rate sell when they appreciate.
“Last year, this generated N15 million for us. We also have our internal active stock exchange. Whatever business we do has tax liability imputed.
In terms of membership, we are 1400 strong and those expelled for criminal misconduct are 33. In terms of the size of the business, our assets are in the neighbourhood of around N20 billion. If you divide it by the number of members, it averages N15 million.
So I do not know where this idea of one person being a billionaire came from. I am not the largest shareholder in the club. The largest shareholder works with the Atomic Agency in Vienna and he is a member of BOT.
The second largest shareholder is a medical doctor based in the UK and he is a BOT member also. If anything is going wrong, it is these people who have big investments that will raise the alarm.
The person raising the alarm holds the minimum number of shares 50,000 shares. It is ridiculous that 96% of our members are with us.”
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