On this characteristic, VICTOR AYENI writes about how the director of a United Kingdom-based social care recruiting company, Lekan Ayuba, allegedly used his former staff to lure in candidates and amass wealth via doubtful guarantees of care jobs and non-existent Certificates of Sponsorship
Within the “About Us” part of the web site of Click on Operations, a United Kingdom-based agency, it described itself as “a healthcare recruitment company” that helps to “recruit and re-train a crew of extremely educated, compassionate, and devoted care staff” offering care all through the UK.
A care employee, in accordance with a British house studying web site, www.ncchomelearning.co.uk, is “a educated skilled who helps different folks in all elements of their day by day life” which incorporates getting ready and consuming meals, socialising, bodily actions, and medical help.
Whereas some care staff work in care houses, others are employed on a contract foundation in affected person’s houses, whereas domiciliary carers journey to completely different folks’s homes locally.
Sadly, many Nigerian candidates who relied on the director of Click on Operations, Lekan Ayuba, to supply them with their Certificates of Sponsorship to allow them to enter the UK, have described the claims on his company’s web site as “mere window dressing to lure in determined folks.”
Based on the most recent State of the Grownup Social Care Sector and Workforce Report, 9.9 per cent of positions within the care business within the UK had been vacant between 2022 and 2023, which is equal to 152,000 vacancies being marketed on a mean day.
On account of this shortfall, many UK employers depend on recruiting grownup social care staff from different international locations reminiscent of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and India.
A few of these candidates, now stranded in Nigeria, advised Saturday PUNCH that they frittered tens of millions of naira on medical checks, worldwide driving licences, police reviews, and acquiring the CoS to journey to the UK, however Ayuba reportedly stored suspending the supply of their CoS.
The candidates additionally alleged that since final yr once they parted with their cash, Ayuba refused to refund them and abruptly stopped speaking with them.
A journey agent, Funmilayo Dan-Musa, alleged that her 18-year-old nephew who wanted to be flown to the UK for medical remedy died whereas Ayuba stored deceitfully delaying her after he collected monies for utility, documentation, and medical insurance from her.
She additional acknowledged that Ayuba had blocked her together with different main candidates on his social media accounts and left her indebted to the folks she really useful him to.
After their tales had been revealed by Saturday PUNCH two weeks in the past, some former Nigerian staff who labored with Ayuba within the UK, contacted our correspondent and accused him of utilizing them to get extra shoppers and amassing wealth for himself.
Nonetheless, citing safety causes, the ex-employees most well-liked to not have their full names disclosed.
They accused Ayuba of financially extorting folks by promising to problem them CoS, refusing to refund them their cash, owing his former employees, and arbitrarily eradicating them from the corporate once they stopped bringing candidates to his company.
‘He made cash deceiving folks’
Talking with Saturday PUNCH, a former Enterprise Improvement Supervisor at Click on Operations, merely often known as Mr Joel, stated Ayuba met him in a church in 2022, the place he advised him that he owned a care company and that he had a number of contracts all around the UK.
This, he alleged, was later discovered to be unfaithful, after he was employed by the company and he realised it had solely a consumer.
“Ayuba begged me to work with him to construct the enterprise and I agreed. He (Ayuba) would usually give directions about which accounts we had been to switch the cash from candidates. A few of this cash was transferred to his account, a few of which he refunded however left with £180,000.
“Most of his dealings with these folks had been based mostly on lies, so when these folks began asking for refunds, he would deceive them. As a result of we didn’t have entry to his lawyer, he was the one one speaking along with his lawyer, so no matter he advised us was what we relied upon because the director of the corporate.
“It was a lot later we realised that he wasn’t who we thought he was. Now, he has gone incommunicado; he has blocked us on WhatsApp and adjusted his quantity. He despatched somebody to inform us that he’s a British citizen and no one can do something to him. He threatened that if we ever got here to his home, he would name the police on us,” Joel stated.
Joel’s spouse, Ruth alleged that though Ayuba made some refunds to a few of the folks they introduced who paid for his or her recruitment course of, he nonetheless owed them a complete of £180,000.
She stated, “Lekan signed a doc with one of many individuals who paid him the place he acknowledged how a lot he was owing us and the way he meant to totally refund. We’ve proof of this.
“We held a gathering with Lekan the place a priest tried to settle us amicably, and on this assembly, Ayuba admitted to taking the sum of £180,000 from us and promised to pay up in August 2024.
“Individuals are dragging us left and proper for recommending him to them, individuals are crying due to the cash he withheld. What we would like for Lekan Ayuba to return up and refund their cash and cease hiding.”
Additionally talking with Saturday PUNCH, a former supervisor on the firm who gave her identify as Deola stated she turned pals with Ayuba in 2020 and thru her, acquired his agency registered with the Care High quality Fee, a authorities company that regulates all well being and social care providers within the UK.
“Earlier than you may run a domiciliary healthcare within the UK, you’ll want to be regulated by the CQC and undergo a registration course of. You’d want a registered supervisor and a nominated particular person. Lekan knew I had the expertise and proper {qualifications}, so he requested me to hitch his crew and I agreed. I acquired his enterprise registered in November 2023,” she revealed.
Deola alleged that Ayuba deceived her to imagine that he had a contract however it was the CQC registration that was delaying it.
“He requested me to convey folks to pay for the recruitment course of and so they gave him cash. All the cash I gave him was money and he despatched one in every of his staff to return and decide up the cash from my home. That was between September 2023 and January 2024. Hundreds of kilos from folks had been additionally given to Lekan which had been picked up in money beneath his directions by former staff of his organisation.
“All these individuals who paid had been added to a WhatsApp group and Lekan was the group admin. Later, the entire thing acquired ugly, folks had been demanding refunds and Ayuba stored telling completely different tales to the intermediary between us via whom a few of these candidates got here.
“Finally, the intermediary and a few people confronted Ayuba at his home, and the police acquired concerned. He lied that they needed to kidnap him. This led to the intermediary’s arrest and Ayuba additionally accused me of being the mastermind of the kidnap, and denied accumulating any cash from me,” she added.
Duping the determined
A former Director of Operations at Click on Operations, Theresa Omotayo, stated when she met Ayuba via a colleague, he assured her that he was constructing a care firm, which led her to resign from her earlier job and be a part of his crew.
She added, “Ayuba provided me a job with sponsorship and advised me about his contracts in a number of elements of the UK, and his plan to supply coaching for worldwide candidates that he meant to sponsor.
“It was once I joined the corporate that I found that his firm didn’t have quite a few contracts like he claimed. He didn’t even have the CQC accreditation to sponsor caregivers.
“He acquired me concerned in coaching worldwide candidates on delicate expertise, asking me to create a related and full curriculum and never rush the coaching, as he needed the carers to be effectively educated and grounded earlier than their arrival into the nation. I didn’t know he had already charged these candidates and was shopping for himself extra time with the coaching.”
Omotayo additionally alleged that for months, no visas had been granted and candidates started to ask for refunds, a few of which she stated Ayuba paid again.
“We had been nonetheless processing this when he (Ayuba) all of the sudden eliminated all of us from the corporate’s WhatsApp group. He stated the corporate has folded up however the reality is, the corporate by no means folded up. He’s nonetheless working his enterprise utilizing one other set of individuals,” she added.
Workers owed
One other former worker, Pleasure Opeoluwa, stated she began working with Ayuba and Click on Operations in late 2022.
“I went on depart in late January this yr and resumed again in March. At this level, I used to be already owed a month’s wage. I requested Lekan (Ayuba) what was occurring, and he assured me that he would begin to pay the carers and my pending wage, as he claimed he was attempting to get extra contracts.
“Then I came upon from emails of complaints to the corporate, a number of of which Lekan deleted, that he had allegedly collected very massive sums of cash, surpassing £500,000 from individuals for authorized visa functions charges along with him owing different in-house employees salaries as effectively.
“Carers occurring shift had been in misery as they weren’t getting paid. I despatched Lekan screenshots of their complaints however he appeared unbothered and stated they might be high-quality. After I challenged him about it, he determined to take away me from the corporate’s platform. My firm e mail stopped working and as a consequence of that I needed to tender my resignation,” Opeoluwa advised Saturday PUNCH.
She accused Ayuba of nonetheless owing her three months’ salaries except for different allowances.
“I attempted reaching out to him via textual content messages, however I used to be advised a number of occasions that he was engaged on it. As of now, he’s modified his numbers, and isn’t responding to emails,” Opeoluwa added.
Additionally talking with Saturday PUNCH, a former worker, Dare Olatunji, alleged that neither Ayuba nor his lawyer had processed any of the visa functions for the candidates.
Olatunji stated, “If the federal government didn’t take the cash from you, and these monies had been all handed over to you, the place is their cash? Why hasn’t Ayuba returned the cash he took from folks? He can’t say he gave the cash to the federal government or that he paid his employees with them both as a result of the corporate was self-sufficient.
“The workers labored onerous to realize their clientele for the corporate, and from July 2023, the corporate may boast of sustainability after salaries had been paid. As quickly as points got here up inside the firm relating to his fraudulent actions, he determined to dissolve the corporate via a number of conferences by refusing to pay staff’ salaries, which led to resignations.”
These are faceless people – Ayuba
When Saturday PUNCH once more reached out to Ayuba to reply to the allegations on Wednesday, he defined that Click on Operations was owned by his brother and he couldn’t reply to the primary publication two weeks in the past as a result of he was on a enterprise journey.
“The corporate just isn’t owned by me, however by my brother, and if you despatched that mail, he was about to go on a enterprise journey and he stated when he got here again he was going to reply to that mail. He was on a enterprise journey once I despatched the hyperlink to him.
“We had been shocked and he suggested me to go away it in order that he wouldn’t get entangled in a blackmail. How many individuals did we practice that these individuals are accusing us?” he requested.
He advised our correspondent to ship once more the record of the allegations made towards him by his former staff.
When he obtained a mail that summed up the allegations, he demanded that the private identities of those that accused him be revealed by our correspondent.
“Thanks on your e mail, kindly let me know their names as anybody can declare to be something in my firm. Kindly let me know what every of them is alleging me for,” Ayuba’s e mail learn.
When our correspondent notified him that the previous staff had chosen to be given pseudonyms for security causes, Ayuba described them as “faceless people.”
He wrote, “These are faceless people. How do I reply to such allegations? How are we positive that it isn’t just a few miscreants that concocted lies only for malicious intent?
“I cannot reply to such malicious accusation. You might be an investigative journalist, you already know the fitting factor to do. Thanks very a lot.”
Saturday PUNCH additionally emailed the UK House Workplace on September 28 relating to the allegations made towards Click on Operations however had but to obtain a reply as of the time of submitting this report.