March 22, 2025 – Union Bank Nigeria Plc, a festering blight on Nigeria’s financial landscape, has once again proven it’s a serial offender in the art of fraud and deception. Dragged into Lagos’ Special Offences Court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a N76 billion ($49.5 million) and $31.5 million fraud tied to Arik Air, the bank’s latest disgrace is a neon-lit billboard of its rotten core. This isn’t an aberration—it’s Union Bank doing what it does best: lying, cheating, and dodging accountability. From falsifying statements to burying evidence, their playbook is as predictable as it is vile, and it’s high time judicial and regulatory hammers come crashing down to end this cesspit of corporate rot.
The Arik Air Debacle: Falsehoods as a Business Model
In the N76 billion Arik Air scandal, Union Bank’s treachery shines like a festering sore. The EFCC alleges that in 2011, the bank fed AMCON a steaming pile of lies about Arik Air’s loans and guarantees, claiming they were “performing” to offload a N71 billion liability onto the public entity. This wasn’t a misstep—it was a deliberate, slimy con, orchestrated to fleece AMCON and leave Nigeria’s economy bleeding. Peter Omokaro, a former Union Bank insider, testified on March 17, 2025, that the bank guaranteed Arik Air’s aircraft deals with HSBC and US EXIM Bank, only to pawn them off to AMCON after the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 2009 takeover. A secret 2011 London meeting—excluding Arik Air—sealed the betrayal, with Union Bank slinking into the obligor role despite no defaults, as confirmed by ex-Group Executive Director Augustine Obigwe. False statements? Check. Breach of fiduciary duty? Double check. It’s Union Bank’s signature move.
The Dead Man’s Tale: More Lies, More Cover-Ups
If you think Union Bank’s dishonesty is a one-trick pony, look no further than Fisayo Soyombo’s 2024 exposé. A deceased customer’s N142 million property was sold off by Union Bank for a pathetic N30 million—a theft so brazen it’s almost cartoonish. When the presiding judge demanded the late customer’s bank statements to unravel this travesty, Union Bank pulled a classic dodge: a bank official shrugged and claimed the statements were “lost.” Lost? In a digital age where records are preserved with a click? This isn’t incompetence—it’s a calculated lie, a mirror image of the false statements they fed AMCON in the Arik Air case. Whether it’s misrepresenting loans or burying evidence of their plunder, Union Bank’s strategy is clear: deceive, deflect, and let the profits roll in. The parallels are chilling—two cases, years apart, united by a culture of shameless fabrication and zero accountability.
A Rogues’ Gallery of Fraud
Union Bank’s rap sheet is a hall of infamy. Emmanuel Nwude, a former director, swindled $242 million from Brazil’s Banco Noroeste in the 1990s, cementing the bank’s global reputation as a fraud factory. In 2021, ex-CEO Emeka Emuwa faced EFCC heat over a N1.9 billion scam tied to Union Homes shares. And in March 2025, X users like @manjiofficial and @BidemiBello8 raged about unauthorized debits—N18,700 here, N5,999 there—calling Union Bank “thieves” and the “biggest thief of our time.” This isn’t a bank; it’s a criminal enterprise cloaked in corporate respectability, preying on everyone from dead clients to living customers to national institutions.
The Oversight Imperative: Nigeria Deserves Better
Union Bank’s antics scream for a reckoning. Their refusal to produce bank statements in the N142 million case—flouting a judicial order—mirrors the false statements in the Arik Air scandal, exposing a culture of bad corporate governance, shoddy ethics, and flagrant breaches of fiduciary duty. This isn’t just Union Bank’s problem—it’s a cancer festering across Nigeria’s banking sector, where trust is a punchline and regulators nap on the job. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the EFCC must stop playing whack-a-mole and impose iron-fisted oversight: forensic audits, crippling fines, and criminal prosecutions that pierce the corporate veil. Courts should slam Union Bank with contempt rulings when they “lose” evidence, and regulators should strip licenses from repeat offenders. Without this, the bank’s lies will keep piling up, and Nigerians will keep paying the price.
Shut It Down, Clean It Up
Union Bank Nigeria Plc isn’t a financial institution—it’s a predator, a leech that thrives on fraud while spitting in the face of justice and accountability. The N76 billion Arik Air case and the N142 million property theft are just the tip of a rancid iceberg. The judiciary and regulators have a choice: let this cesspool fester or wield their power to dismantle it. Lock the doors, seize the assets, and send a message to every bank in Nigeria—play by the rules or perish. Union Bank’s reign of deceit has gone on long enough; it’s time to burn this house of lies to the ground and build something worth trusting.
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