The Ipetumodu Apetu, Oba Joseph Oloyede, has pleaded guilty in a United States federal court to a single charge of defrauding the government out of $4.2 million in COVID-19 relief money, a case that has received massive responses in both the United States and Nigeria.
In a hearing on Tuesday, August 19, 2025, before Northern District of Ohio Judge Christopher Boyko, defense attorneys for Oloyede argued that the unprecedented pressures of the pandemic, combined with specific health issues, impacted his conduct. They highlighted, however, that while the pandemic was no apology, it weighed heavily on the monarch’s decisions.
Oloyede, who had moved to America in the late 1990s and built a good career as a banker and adjunct lecturer before moving to Nigeria in 2019 to assume the leadership of Ipetumodu, was described by his lawyers as a man with decades of experience in leadership, discipline, and service. They contended that the case strayed dramatically from his character.
Investigators found that some of the stolen funds were laundered through business and individual accounts, leading to the forfeiture of a Medina County home in Ohio and the confiscation of more than $96,000 from a corporate account. Court documents also revealed that Oloyede used six different firms to submit bogus applications under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL).
The FBI, who had been tracking his trace since May 2024 when he mysteriously disappeared in Nigeria, noticed that being absent meant that he missed key cultural celebrations like Odun Egungun and Odun Edi in Ipetumodu.
The father of six and caretaker of several foster children has been let out on bail after surrendering both his Nigerian and American passports. He is under close monitoring to be sentenced on August 26, 2025.
The matter has drawn controversy regarding the conflict between cultural authority and responsibility under international law.
