The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bukka Hut, Rasheed Jaiyeola Founder/CEO of Bukka Hut, Rasheed Jaiyeola, has clarified the nature of the business he had with one of the shareholders of the firm, Olaolu Martins, who died in controversial circumstances.

He said he had to speak after the demise of Martins because the social media had been awash with false stories.

According to Jaiyeola: “The Board, Management and Staff of Bukka Hut continues to mourn the unfortunate passing of Mr Olaolu Martins, who was a key stakeholder and a minority shareholder in Bukka Hut.

“We pray that Almighty God continue to provide us the strength and fortitude to bear this loss.”

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Explaining the rationale behind releasing the statement, Jaiyeola said: “Unfortunately, we are shockingly observing some unscrupulous elements in the society who are capitalising on this recent unfortunate incident to maliciously misrepresent verifiable facts on various social media platforms, thus, causing significant distress to families, staff, customers and other stakeholders of Bukka Hut.

“To clarify, Rasheed Jaiyeola is the Founder/C.E.O of Bukka Hut, a proudly Nigerian brand he built from inception in August 2011 from one outlet to 24 outlets comprising of restaurants, lounges and suya and grill spots, and a learning facility, BH Academy, as at today. He jointly owns majority shares of the company with his wife and sister.

“Bukka Hut is not a one man business as there are two other shareholders/directors but they are not involved in the daily management of the business.

“Rasheed and the late Olaolu Martins were co-owners of Nigerian International Securities Ltd (NISL) and naturally Laolu was one of the three people he invited to invest in Bukka Hut when he founded it in 2011. Rasheed resigned from NISL as a director in 2016 to focus solely on building Bukka Hut while Olaolu remained the MD/C.E.O of NISL and its related businesses.

“The family of the late Olaolu Martins has released a statement to clarify the news regarding his untimely demise and it is our hope that their wishes are respected at this very difficult time.”

Rtn. Victor Ojelabi

Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.