Union Bank of Nigeria Plc led by Yetunde Oni, is currently grappling with a massive N9.3 billion fraud following a significant operational system breach, THE WITNESS reports.
The development comes exactly one year and three months after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sacked the bank’s board and entire management, citing governance failures.
A new management team was subsequently appointed to lead the financial institution.Union Bank is battling to recover the sum of N9,329,322,870.00 (nine billion, three hundred and twenty-nine million, three hundred and twenty-two thousand, eight hundred and seventy naira), withdrawn from customers’ accounts without authorization.In a suit marked FHC/L/CS/629/2025, filed before the Federal High Court in Lagos, seen by THE WITNESS, Union Bank sought a preservative order compelling the financial institutions involved to place Post No Debit restrictions on the accounts of all beneficiaries and to return the stolen funds traced to their institutions.
According to the bank, the fraud followed an operational failure and fraud in its core banking system on March 23, 2025, which led to unauthorized transfers from customers’ accounts.
An affidavit deposed to by Oluwasegun Falola, head of the E-Fraud Investigations Department at Union Bank, stated that the funds were fraudulently and erroneously transferred from the bank to various accounts across 53 financial institutions.
Falola explained that on March 23, 2025, the bank observed that N9.3 billion had been debited from customer accounts and dispersed into various accounts maintained by the respondent banks.
He added that Union Bank immediately contacted the banks involved in a bid to halt further dissipation of the funds.
“The Fraud Desk Department of the bank, in the course of its investigations, discovered that the monies were transferred in trickles into several accounts domiciled with the 1st to 54th Respondents,” the affidavit stated.
