Ebun Okubanjo has resigned as CEO of Bento Africa a Nigerian payroll platform and human resource management platform. This is in response to allegations that it failed to remit pensions and taxes on behalf of clients. Okubanjo sent an email to Bento’s board of directors announcing his resignation. He also renounced his equity and debt in the company. This move opens up the possibility of a fresh start for Okubanjo as well as Bento Africa.
Okubanjo hinted in his resignation email at a new project. Ada AI is an AI-powered sales assistant.
Okubanjo explained his decision by citing the difficulty in scaling up HR and payroll systems on African soil. “These companies would be gold mines if Africa adopted the Western style of taxation, remittances and remittances. I use Gusto not because I want to but because I must. “Until then, scale will be a problem,” Okubanjo wrote via email.
The resignation of Okubanjo comes at a time of turmoil for Bento Africa. There are allegations of financial mismanagement – particularly in relation to the withholding employee taxes and pension contributions. Akintunde Sulaiman, co-founder and CEO of the edtech firm AltSchool, brought these claims to light on Friday. Fuelmetrics, an inventory management company for petrol stations, also claimed that Bento Africa failed to pay up to N50m ($108,000) of taxes and pension contributions in 2023 and 2024.
Okubanjo had earlier sent a letter of resignation to the board of directors at the company on January 11, 2025. His resignation comes after a controversial leadership journey that included a brief outing and a subsequent return as CEO.
Okubanjo quit in March 2022, following allegations of verbal abuse. Bento’s Board appointed cofounder Chidozie Okonkwo CEO, but in an unexpected turn, Okubanjo was back as CEO in September of 2022, after Okonkwo had resigned citing personal reasons. Insiders may not have been surprised by Okubanjo’s resignation in January of 2025. He had already signaled in 2024 that he intended to step down. One employee claimed that Okubanjo offered his position to Lede Adeniyi as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Adeniyi refused the offer and left Bento, in October 2024, to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions.
Okubanjo, in his first email to investors dated January 11, asked the board to start searching for a replacement. He stated that he would leave the position within six weeks. In the same email, he reflected on his leadership experience: “This was a learning experience; it will take a lifetime to digest all the lessons from this great failure. But as a perpetual learner, I am okay with that.” I’m okay with that.”
But three days after Okubanjo announced his first resignation, TechCabal discovered Bento hadn’t contacted investors. A handful were unaware of the resignation. One investor, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed that the company sent investors updates rarely. Another claimed to know little about the company. Both investors said that the company’s transparency in its operations could have been improved.
Bento, founded in 2019, raised funding from investors such as Berrywood Capital, Flexcap, and angel investors. Despite the list of investors, allegations about a toxic work environment surfaced in 2022. Okubanjo claimed that the company was raising funds at the time. Former employee claims that the incident shattered those talks.
Bento belongs to a group of relatively new startups that offer salary automation, statutory payments like pensions and taxes, and access loans. It claims to have processed more than $40 million in payrolls since 2019 and counts Moniepoint Paystack Kobo360 Lori Systems as clients.
Despite Bento’s claims of success, many investors are skeptical. While one investor said that it didn’t seem like a growing business, Okubanjo claims the company is profitable. The company processes about N4-5 billion ($2.6 millions) in salaries per month and generates around N24 million ($15.871) in revenue.
