The United Bank for Africa (UBA Plc), which is led by Tony Elumelu, is currently dealing with the fallout from a major system failure that caused more than ₦180.5 million to be taken out of customer accounts without authorisation.
The bank has initiated legal proceedings as it attempts to recover the lost funds.
This development comes on the heels of another controversy involving the bank.
Just weeks ago, the Lagos State Police Command arrested four UBA officials for allegedly stealing £138,924 (over ₦270 million) from the domiciliary accounts of international airlines.
According to police investigations, the suspects reportedly conspired to divert the foreign currency from corporate accounts into private accounts and then redistributed the funds to multiple beneficiaries.
On the recent system glitch, UBA, in a suit filed before the Federal High Court in Lagos, is seeking a preservative court order compelling 15 financial institutions to immediately return the sum of ₦180,507,972.00, which the bank claims to have traced to various accounts within those institutions.
The bank claims the funds were fraudulently transferred during a period of system instability between March 20 and March 24, 2025.
An affidavit deposed by Obiora Ugwuanyi, a senior official at UBA, states that the incident was triggered by a glitch in the bank’s banking system, which enabled a wave of unauthorized transactions. He noted that these transactions not only affected UBA’s own accounts but also extended to customer and recipient accounts across at least 15 other financial institutions, many of which are now listed as defendants in the lawsuit.
UBA disclosed that it promptly launched an internal investigation and moved to contain the fallout by attempting to block and recover the unauthorized transfers.
The bank asserted in court filings that “t immediately made several demands to the defendants to post a No Debit on the beneficiaries account and reverse back the said amounts but the defendants failed, refused and or neglected to reverse back the said amount.”
Some of the defendants in their response however argued that the erroneous funds transferred from UBA had been dissipated by the affected customers before the service of the court’s order on them.
The bank stressed the urgency of the situation, warning that failure to recover the funds poses a serious financial threat to its customers, investors, and shareholders.
In addition to tracing the transactions, UBA said it has prepared detailed reports documenting the movement of the stolen funds, identifying recipient accounts, and listing the amounts that have already been recovered.
In its plea to the court, UBA is requesting: An order compelling the 15 financial institutions to return all traced and recovered funds and an order directing the financial institutions to furnish the identities and account details of individuals who received and potentially dispersed the funds.
The bank is also seeking a mandatory injunction directing the defendants, their agents, privies, officers and or any directors to furnish before the court, Bank Verification Number (BVN) and other necessary particulars directly linked to their affected customer beneficiaries’ accounts where such customer beneficiaries’ accounts are not sufficiently funded to cover the monies erroneously transferred from the bank.
This latest incident underscores growing concerns over cybersecurity and operational resilience within Nigeria’s banking sector.
