Bento abruptly laid off its 10-person tech team on Friday after they protested a delay in their January salaries, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The layoffs come just a week after the company faced accusations of failing to remit millions of naira in taxes and pensions and allegedly forging tax receipts for Lagos State customers.
Founder Ebun Okubanjo, who resigned on January 30, continued communicating with employees the following day. However, workers became uneasy when he informed them that salaries would be “strategically delayed” until Bento processed pending payroll for its customers. Frustrated by the lack of clarity, the team collectively agreed to halt work until they were paid.
Despite his resignation, Okubanjo remained involved in company matters. He claimed that delaying salaries was a strategic move, as he expected some employees to resign due to the ongoing controversy. When the tech team refused to resume work, he treated their protest as resignations and deactivated their work emails without pay.
Okubanjo offered to distribute withheld salaries among employees willing to stay and continue payroll processing. “If we end up with two employees making ₦3 million each, that is it,” he wrote in internal chat messages. No one accepted the offer, according to sources by TechCabal.
“I don’t work for Bento, so I am unable to respond on its behalf,” Okubanjo said when asked about the layoffs.
The layoffs have thrown Bento’s payroll processing into disarray. Previously, the company automated salary disbursements, but issues with payment processors and underfunded accounts forced a shift to manual processing in 2024. With the tech team gone, an employee noted, “There is almost no one to run payroll.”
In an email to customers, Bento claimed it had deliberately paused transactions to facilitate the transfer of platform credentials from Okubanjo to an interim overseer. However, some employees said they only learned about the allegations of forged tax receipts through social media.
One former employee, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals, admitted concerns over how the controversy might affect his career. “I even took the company off my LinkedIn for a while,” he said. He claimed other employees shared his concerns but were also shocked when Okubanjo deactivated their work emails.
