Payroll management company Bento abruptly dismissed its 10-person tech team on Friday following a protest over delayed salaries, TechCabal reported.
The layoffs came just one week after the company was accused of failing to remit millions of naira in taxes and pensions and allegedly forging tax receipts for Lagos State customers.
Founder and CEO Ebun Okubanjo, who has denied the allegations, resigned on January 30. However, at least two investors told TechCabal they were unaware of a resignation letter that was reportedly issued in his name. Despite his supposed departure, Okubanjo continued communicating with employees the following day, informing them that January salaries would be “strategically delayed” until pending customer payrolls were processed.
The delayed payments sparked internal discontent. In a Google Chat message seen by TechCabal, one affected employee lamented, “It’s January, and everyone is going through it financially. Even amidst all the chaos, we’re still here working without knowing where the company is headed.” Employees collectively decided to halt operations until they were paid.
Okubanjo defended the salary delay, asserting that Bento had a history of prompt payments and that the move was a strategic response to anticipated resignations amid ongoing controversies. When employees refused to resume work, he treated their protest as a resignation and deactivated their work emails without pay. He reportedly offered to divide withheld salaries among any employees willing to remain and process payroll. “If we end up with two employees making 3 million each, that is it,” he wrote in a Google Chat message. No one accepted the offer, sources confirmed.
In a statement to TechCabal, Okubanjo said, “I don’t work for Bento, so I am unable to respond on its behalf.”
The dismissed tech team comprised mostly young engineers in the early stages of their careers, many of whom had been with the company for just over a year. The last founding tech team member reportedly resigned in 2024. The mass layoffs have further strained Bento’s operations, particularly payroll processing for its customers.
The company, which previously automated salary disbursements, has relied on manual processing since 2024 due to challenges with payment processors and underfunded accounts. “With all the engineers gone, there is almost no one to run payroll,” one employee said.
Despite these disruptions, Bento informed customers via email that transactions were intentionally halted to facilitate the transfer of platform credentials from Okubanjo to an interim overseer.
Meanwhile, employees are grappling with the fallout from the tax allegations and layoffs. One worker, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals, revealed he only learned about the alleged forged tax receipts on social media and worried about the potential impact on his career. “I even took the company off my LinkedIn for a while,” he said, adding that others shared similar concerns but were blindsided when Okubanjo cut off their access to work systems.
