Having been listed as one of Forbes 100 Most Influential Young Africans 2018, Obinwanne Okeke (Invictus Obi) is a celebrated entrepreneur in Nigeria. Only for the news to break out that he has been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for defrauding Unatrac Limited to the tune of $11 million.

If you convert that to Naira, at the rate of 360 Naira to a dollar, that’s over 4 billion Naira! The saddest thing about the whole situation is that the fraud happened under the nose of Unatrac Limited’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

15 illegal transactions within 8 days!

According to the affidavit released by Marshall Ward of FBI in supporting the arrest of Mr Obi, the illegal transactions were successful because the CFO fell for phishing. In case you are not aware, phishing is a hacking technique in which a hacker disguises as a staff of an account provider and persuades a targeted victim to click a link so as to resolve a problem with the account. The utmost aim is to steal the login details of the targeted victim.

Aside from falling for the phishing scam, it was also stated in the affidavit that Mr Obi and his accomplices changed the email settings of the CFO. Emails sent to the CFO from the members of the Finance Team were automatically marked as read and moved to a separate folder outside the inbox.

This means there was a slight change in the inbox settings of the CFO within the period; however, he didn’t notice. With all this information from the affidavit, it can be said that the CFO’s lack of cybersecurity knowledge cost his company millions of dollars.

If the CFO had been trained in cybersecurity, the situation might have been different. This is because, in cybersecurity classes, people are taught how to protect themselves from viruses, malware, phishing, and other online vices. If the CFO had attended a cybersecurity class, he would have known that the email sent to him was dubious.

He could have noticed the changes in his email inbox settings, too.

The lesson here for companies is that they should make cybersecurity training a must for their employees, both old and new. Besides, antivirus and antimalware should be installed on the companies’ servers, including the email servers.

Doing these would help prevent the case of identity theft and the stress of speaking to EFCC or FBI to help recoup your stolen money.

He was featured on Forbes under 30, list of young millionaires, celebrated far and wide by friends and well-wishers, even the “God-Wheners” who envy his success as an Entrepreneur and a young African force to be reckoned with. That was Obinwanne Okeke, a.k.a Invictus Obi, the founder and CEO of Invictus Group of Companies, not long ago. He was basking in the glory and honor of his successful empire until a few days ago, when the FBI’s investigative wind blew toward his castle and exposed the skeletons his empire was built upon.

In a painstaking investigation, the FBI revealed that the high flying young man, whose investment in real estate, energy and construction, is operational in 3 African countries namely, Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa, have been a kingpin of wire fraud. The $11 million graft investigation started in June 2018, when the victim, Unatrac Holding Limited, a UK headquartered caterpillar and industrial heavy duty machines company filed a complaint with the FBI, reporting that company has been defrauded through email phishing.

The Bureau went to work, started connecting the odds and putting the pieces together to find that the email address of the company has actually been compromised and the traces are pointing to Nigeria. There was a well calculated move that took the unsuspecting company unaware.

According to the FBI’s Affidavit, on about April 2018, Unatrac’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), received a Phishing email containing a weblink, purportedly to the login page of the CFO’s online email account hosted by Microsoft office365. When the CFO opened the link, it led him to a phishing website crafted to imitate the original Office365 login page. Not concerned about the legitimacy of the page since it appears the same, he put in his login credentials and they were all captured through the spoofed webpage.

After capturing the legitimate credentials, the Fraudster was able to log into the original Office365 email account and accessed the entire information. For over 464 times, he accessed the account, gathering information and planning how to use them.

Satisfied with the information at his disposal and with full access to the account, Invictus Obi started working full time. Manipulating templates, cloning invoices and receipts, forwarding them to partners and clients of Unatrac.

During the period of unauthorized access, activity logs show that the Invictus created modified filter rules for the CFO’s account on seven occasions between April 10 and April 17, 2018. The filter rules intercepted legitimate emails to and from employees on financial team, marked them as read, and moved them to another folder outside the inbox. Thus, he hid from the CFO, responses from the individuals he was sending fabricated emails.

It was on the belief that those emails were coming from the CFO that the company’s financial staff processed and transferred in installments, the whooping sum of $11 million. And it was too late to recall by the time it was discovered to be fraud.

Wondering how in the world Invictus Obi was able to pull that off? He had a degree in forensic criminology with distinction. So his criminal mind outsmarted the unsuspecting protocols, and the fraudulent proceeds were worth the risk. But as smart as he thought he was, he gave himself away with one important detail – his email.

Invictus Obi, in his smartfulness created REDACTED emails and phone numbers to carry out his schemes. One of those emails happened to be his company’s email that he has severally used to apply for US visas. He was still in the US when the FBI uncovered that and issued a warrant for his arrest.

So the wind did not only expose the skeletons beneath his castle, it also shook the foundation so that it comes crumbling. But not only for him but several others, especially those doing legit online businesses in Nigeria. The green passport has taken another jab, and the impact will be felt at the airports, seaports and shores away from home – especially by the innocent.

Those whose only crime is to live in geographical territory where criminals thrive, and to share the same means of identification with them when it matters. Their cry of innocence wouldn’t change the status quo, and their good reputation will make no difference. It’s the index finger that got dipped into the oil, but the rest of the fingers got stained by it.

It is no longer news that Gokada is on a 12 day journey to improve its services. The question then is why do you have to take a break before you can improve your service? In this piece, I will highlight a few developments that I believe informed this move.

1. The Need for Blue Ocean

Within two years of growing activities in the motorbike hailing space in Nigeria, the small drop of water has turned into a great ocean and surprisingly it’s now a Red Ocean. With players like Max.ng, Gokada, ORide, the movement of activities changed. Price is no longer a big deal as ORide came with a ridiculous price that left others with no hope.

What then can possibly be done differently? The answer is Service! Professionalism must be weaved into the fabric of any brand that will compete with ORide. This is primarily what GoKada set out for.

In the note released by Fahim Saleh (GoKada Co-C.E.O.) he said “It’s not easy criticizing your own company. But either I could ignore these issues and move along happily like everything was fine. Or I could realize that this kind of thing is happening to our customers thousands of times over. I am not ok with that. Gokada was started to change the perception of what the bike taxi could be in terms of safety, convenience, and transparency”. 

This was a statement that narrates his unpalatable ordeal while trying to hail Gokada bike from Lagos V.I. to Third Mainland Bridge.

He believes the brand is far from fulfilling its promise (safety, convenience, and transparency).

I also have a series of experience with different motorbike hailing brands. So, I can talk about how service can make a difference. The best of my experience is always when I take MaxOkada, there’s this premium feeling that accompany their brand, from the type of bike and helmet to their champions’ (MaxOkada called their drivers Champion) driving skill. However, Gokada and ORide hardly give me the same feeling.

Fahim however stated that the 12 days shutdown will result in improved service from the brand with a re-trained Pilots on using navigation and adequate use of the app for service delivery, new set of bikes, among others.

My Take: Price will take you far but exceptional service is the only guarantee to keep you up. Sure, Gokada has received a great hit in market share within this break but if they can be back with a significantly improved service, then, I can speak of their survival.

2. The Loss of Key Resources to Competitors

Like I stated earlier, the most obvious reason is the need to create a Blue Ocean however, a lead to this need is the loss of key resources to their competitor (ORide).

In less than a year, Gokada has lost key resources as high as its Co-founder to ORide. Below is a list as reported by WeeTracker.

1. Awolowo Moses: Awolowo Moses was the co-founder/COO of Gokada. He currently works as the Director of Business Operations at ORide.
2. Ebunoluwa Shipe: served at GoKada as Head of Driver Support/Experience, currently working as a Senior Operation Manager at OPay
3. Awe Oluwakayode: currently working as a Senior Operations Manager at OPay but previously as Driver Acquisition and Road Operations Officer at Gokada.
4. Akinwale Afolabi: left Gokada earlier this year (Feb 2019), and joined OPay May 2019 as the Senior Manager, Growth and Marketing.
5. Riders Dumped GoKada for ORide: there are reports that upon confirmation that a driver is from Gokada, he will get a sign-on fee of N36,000.

Report also has it that both Jumia’s dispatchers and MaxOkada riders have been poached by ORide.

So, I believe this is a big blow that can lead to service inefficiency for Gokada hence the need for urgent restructure (Gokada 2.0).

While working on a better service, I will advice Gokada to also pay a very good attention to Talent acquisition and retention because it’s all about PEOPLE.

Photo Credit: originally the Game of Throne season screenshot.