Nigerian Pastor Samuel Kayode Arrested Over UK's Largest Education Fraud

Nigerians would not stop denting the image of the country with their fast fingers. Coming shortly on the heels of the arrest of a Nigerian fraudster, Frank Onyeachonam, who ran a lottery scam in the United Kingdom for over 8 years and stole over $800,000, another Nigerian, a man of God at that, Pastor Samuel Kayode, who was an accountant at a chain of academies, is now at the centre of a fraud investigation after £4million of school funds ended up in his personal accounts.

The pastor, according to UK authoritative online newspaper, Daily Mail, spent much of the cash on an extravagant lifestyle and buying a string of properties.

The Daily Mail reported the case this way:

The 57-year-old pastor was told by the High Court to pay £4.1million back to the Haberdashers’ Aske’s chain of academies more than a year ago. He has failed to do so, and it is feared most of the cash has been transferred to Nigeria.

The case, kept secret for almost two years, is believed to be Britain’s biggest ever education fraud. Although Kayode was arrested in October 2012, police have yet to charge him with any crime.

Critics of academies – state schools which have control of their own finances – say the massive loss of cash calls that entire system into question.

Kayode went to work at Hatcham in 1997 and rose to become accounts manager for the whole chain. He was paid £57,000 a year, and told colleagues of his work as a pastor in the Christ Apostolic Church, South London, peppering his conversations with ‘praise the Lord’.

In October, 2012, it emerged that a large sum of money was missing from the academies’ funds. Kayode’s assets and those of his wife Grace, who died aged 53 last year, were then frozen.

It appeared that huge sums of school money had been paid into a bank account in Nigeria and a company called Samak, which is said to be run in Nigeria by Kayode’s second wife Yoni, although he denies any wedding has taken place. The trust launched a High Court case to reclaim the missing cash but the accountant denied wrongdoing and claimed ‘all transactions had been authorised by the finance director’.

However, the judge found in the trust’s favour last July and ordered Kayode and the estate of his late wife to pay back more than £4 million plus interest. He remains at large and is not facing any charges, although he is due to speak to detectives again this week. A Metropolitan Police spokesman would say only that a man from Lambeth was on police bail.

Jill Rutter, who has several children at the Hatcham academy, said in an online blog: ‘The fraud strikes at the heart of the educational establishment and shows that the current system and the freedom afforded to academies is not working. Ultimately it is our children that suffer.’

Kayode’s boss at Haberdashers’ Aske’s, former chief finance officer Paul Durgan, is now working for a new academies chain. He said: ‘Sam Kayode completely had me taken, like everybody else. Nobody from the police or school has spoken to me.’