A bitter financial dispute stretching back nearly two decades has thrust Femi Dosunmu, the man at the helm of Gausiya Oil & Gas LLC, into an uncomfortable spotlight, with a Nigerian investor alleging that more than half a million dollars entrusted to him was mismanaged and partly diverted for personal gain.
Alhaji Abubakar Rajab says he released a combined $650,000 beginning in 2008, money he believed would be used to build a chain of ten Lukoil-branded gas stations across the United States. What he got instead, he claims, was years of opacity, shifting ownership arrangements, and mounting evidence that the funds were not handled as agreed.
The origins of the deal trace back to a meeting in Washington, DC in April 2008, where the two men agreed that Alhaji Rajab, his wife, and his daughter would hold a combined 70 percent equity stake, with Dosunmu taking 20 percent and a third partner holding the remaining 10. The company was subsequently incorporated in the US on that basis.
What happened next is where the accounts diverge sharply. Dosunmu later restructured the ownership so that he became the sole owner of record, a change he says was required by Lukoil’s vetting process and carried out with Rajab’s knowledge. Rajab disputes this version of events.
Financial documents reviewed in connection with the case show that after deducting $46,430 for bank charges, travel, and payments to individuals described variously as lobbyists or facilitators, roughly $600,270 remained available for the project. Of that, $300,000 reportedly went to the franchise seller and $100,000 was paid to Lukoil as a refundable security deposit. The remaining $200,000 needed to complete the purchase was never remitted to the seller. Instead, Dosunmu says he secured that amount through a mortgage on his personal properties, a decision Rajab says was taken without his knowledge or consent.
The detail that proved most explosive, however, was Dosunmu’s own admission that $75,000 from the investment pool was used to pay off his personal credit card debt. That disclosure became a flashpoint during reconciliation talks in 2018, where lawyers for both sides attempted to broker a settlement. Rajab’s representatives demanded the immediate return of the $75,000 and a full accounting of every other expenditure, backed by receipts. Neither demand was met to their satisfaction.
The failure to pay the full amount owed to the franchise seller also triggered litigation in the United States, with the company both facing a lawsuit and filing its own counterclaim. Further questions remain over what became of the $100,000 Lukoil deposit, $75,000 of which is said to have been retained to cover unpaid fuel bills without adequate documentation, as well as the fate of fuel inventory reportedly on hand when the business was sold.
Rajab has been unambiguous about where he believes responsibility lies. “I put up the money in good faith and trusted Femi to implement the business exactly as agreed,” he said. “He received the funds, handled the operations, dealt with regulators, and made the decisions. There are clear indications that some of the money was used personally and, more importantly, a full and transparent account was never rendered. The funds were never properly accounted for.”
His central argument is that this is not a case of a business that simply failed, but one where an investor’s funds were handled unilaterally and without adequate accountability by the person entrusted to manage them.
Despite multiple rounds of mediation, Dosunmu has not returned the disputed funds, and no mutually acceptable financial reconciliation has been produced. The matter remains unresolved.
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