Ibrahim Ibitade on how cofounder misalignment led to Leatherback exit and his eventful episode with EFCC

On Thursday, Leatherback, a cross-border startup founded in 2019, announced that Ibrahim Ibitade, co-founder and CEO, was stepping down. In his place, Toni Campbell was named interim CEO, while lead investor and cofounder Dayo Amzat was named non-executive director.  At the best of times, the exit of a cofounder from a business will raise flags. For Leatherback, it was especially curious given its eventful past year.  In November 2023, the company was under the radar after authorities claimed that a shipping company, SDQ Facilitators, had used a Leatherback account to defraud unknown persons of about $10 million.  There were reports that Leatherback’s Nigerian bank accounts were blocked, and in a bit of the dramatic, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared Ibitade wanted.  Persons with knowledge of the matter said the EFCC has since rescinded that notice, and Ibitade has filed a human rights suit against the commission. Leatherback has also taken SDQ Facilitators to court to recover money on behalf of the victims.  Against this backdrop of events and Leatherback’s terse statement announcing Ibitade’s exit, it feels like there’s more to this change of leadership than meets the eye. Ibrahim Ibitade spoke to TechCabal on leading Leatherback, the incident with the EFCC, and the misalignment of goals that necessitated his exit.  (This interview has been lightly edited for clarity) TC: On Thursday, Leatherback announced you stepped down from the company. What drove your decision to step away from the business? I want to start a family. I should be married now with kids, but I’m not. My dream and goals of being a family man do not align with the requirements of the job right now. It’s not something that I can juggle.  I’ve always spoken to people who know me, and I’ve shared that I want to stop doing anything major before I’m 35 and be able to move on to handling things on my own.  Ultimately, it was time. In five years, we’ve done a lot and achieved quite a lot together in the business. I’m leaving primarily to move on to the next phase of life.  TC: Did a disagreement with your major investor play a part in your decision? Partners disagree.  First of all, Zedcrest is a major investor in Leatherback, but I’m still a significant shareholder.  But there are times when disagreements happen, and after multiple misalignments of goals and visions of both parties, I figured that it was time.  I had already steadied the ship to a large extent. The ship needs a very different trajectory right now, and I had to just make that decision to step down so I can focus on other things and of course, support them in every way they can with growth and development.  TC: But it raises some bells when an investor steps in I know it raises some bells, but first of all, there was no stepping in. Since 2022, Dayo Amzat has held Friday morning management meetings with the entire Leatherback team, and that was based on my deferring to him to guide and provide his expertise. Zedcrest has always been heavily involved in the entire process, not day to day, but at least in making strategic decisions. Zedcrest has always been on the Leatherback board, while Dayo has been a board advisor and has not missed one board meeting for the UK board in the last three years. We’ve been working together.  There tends to be disagreement or misalignments. All those factors culminating together made me decide it’s time, and I’ve done my part. This dream is one that I’ve always had; I’ve pushed it to a particular level, and it’s time to move on. So it’s nothing significant or major. TC: Let’s segue into the issue with SDQ Facilitators. Was Leatherback’s Nigerian bank account blocked in relation to that incident? Leatherback’s accounts were not blocked; that’s the fact. Our accounts are still functional.  TC: Were Leatherback’s accounts blocked at the time or at any time? Leatherback has quite several accounts in different countries. None of our accounts in different countries were affected except Nigeria. And that was just one or two of some of our bank accounts in Nigeria. So we had a couple of those accounts that the EFCC placed a lien on for a day or two, and they raised it after a day or two and there is evidence to prove that.  But that’s just one or two of our accounts in Nigeria, and those are the ones that were affected. None of our accounts in any other country was affected in any way or form at all. None of them. TC: There were claims that they were transactions that Leatherback could not account for.  Transactions are not missing in Leatherback. And I mean this 100%. To refer again to some of the issues that we faced at Leatherback. The extent of what we faced in Leatherback are situations where maybe a client receives fraudulent funds in their accounts, and we are mandated by law, to place a lien on that client’s account.  Sometimes, the client goes on Instagram or Twitter and LinkedIn and starts talking about it because they don’t understand that legally when your account receives fraudulent transactions, we are mandated to hold on to the funds when the other bank has raised a query and not take any action.  We can’t even inform you because it is tipping off, and tipping off is illegal, and we can be held accountable.  So that period where we can’t really inform people is what makes people start going online and saying different things. And that’s the extent of what you will find.  Some of these comments that you said now sound like some of the things that those people have said. It’s people’s money, and some of them will raise spurious queries. Some people will involve the CBN and the EFCC; unfortunately, we can’t do anything.  We have to just be quiet, watch, listen, and wait till