E-Financial
UBA Consolidates Pan African Leadership with Key Appointments
United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), the Pan-African bank with operations in 19 African countries and New York, London and Paris, has launched Project Alpha – the Group’s next stage focus of strategic transformation.
UBA has for eight years executed a dedicated strategy of local, regional and global expansion, whose implementation has seen the Group transform from a national player to an institution of international prominence.
Project Alpha is three year route map of key transformation initiatives, designed to consolidate the Group’s strategic positioning and fully capture the opportunities from Africa’s economic renaissance and the Group’s unique platform.
Project Alpha is focused on leveraging all aspects of the Group’s footprint, product offerings and operational capability, allowing a commitment to customer service transformation, market share growth, the implementation of key e-banking initiatives across all segments, the growth of corporate and trade finance capabilities and significant investment in the human capital represented by the over twenty five thousand UBA work force.
A series of senior executive hires underlines the Group’s commitment to Project Alpha. Mr. Apollos Ikpobe has been appointed as deputy managing director, Domestic Bank and Ms. Obi Ibekwe as executive director Human Resources and Customer Service.
Both appointments have been approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Mr. Ikpobe, who was until recently an executive director at Zenith Bank, a position he held for 7 years, brings over 21 years of experience of the Nigerian banking sector.
Mr. Ikpobe will be responsible for driving UBA’s domestic business in Nigeria. His appointment complements existing deputy managing director, Mr. Kennedy Uzoka, responsible for Resources and Treasury.
The new Executive Director Human Resources and Customer Service, Ms. Ibekwe had a distinguished career with Zenith Bank Plc, where she was responsible for Human Resource Management, Customer Services, as well as Credit Risk Management.
She has a background in consulting, banking and customer service, critical for leading the renewed service excellence culture at UBA. Her appointment to the board brings to five, the number of female Directors at the Group board of UBA.
Other key appointments also announced include Mr. Rasheed Adegoke, general manager in charge of Group Information Technology.
Mr Adegoke joins UBA from First Bank of Nigeria, where he was CIO, a role he has held over 13 years at different institutions in the Nigerian financial services sector.
He is a technology and process strategist and with hands-on expertise in the design and delivery of high-performance information technology and business process improvement solutions to address complex business problems.
A critical aspect of the Project Alpha initiative is the focus on UBA Africa, whose contribution currently at 20% of group performance and is planned to be 50% in by 2016. To drive this, the Group is reinforcing its senior African leadership.
Emmanuel Nnorom, Formerly Executive Director, Finance & Risk Management at UBA, has been appointed as the CEO for UBA Africa.
Other senior level appointments in UBA Africa include Mrs. Amie Sow, Managing Director, UBA Senegal; Mr. Demola Ogunfeyimi, Managing Director, UBA Tanzania; Mr. Mamadou Sanon, Managing Director, UBA Gabon; Mr. Martin Che, Managing Director, UBA Congo Brazzaville; Mr. Marcel Bitang, Managing Director, UBA DRC; Mr. Stanley Ugwueze, Managing Director, UBA Zambia; Mrs. Abiola Bawuah, Deputy Managing Director, UBA Ghana; Mr. Benedict Nklama, Executive Director, UBA Kenya; Mr. Wilbrod Owor, Executive Director, UBA Uganda and Mr. Chinedu Obeta, Executive Director, UBA Sierra Leone.
“UBA is able to recruit the cream of African banking talent and we are proud to be able to provide a dynamic platform for these Africans to contribute to our continent’s transformation” said, Mr. Phillips Oduoza, GMD/CEO, UBA.
Speaking further, he said: “Our people remain our greatest asset and we will continue to strategically retool and resource to achieve and surpass the goals of Project Alpha”.
More broadly, Project Alpha allows us both to build on the existing strengths of our franchise, but more importantly demonstrates that going forward we continue to reinvent ourselves, ensuring we capture and deliver the maximum of value for clients, shareholders and staff” he explained.
United Bank for Africa Plc is one of Africa’s leading financial institutions, offering banking services to more than 7 million customers across over 700 branches in 19 African countries. With presence in New York, London and Paris, UBA is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail, commercial and corporate banking, innovative cross border payments and trade finance.
Federal court in Lagos has suspended the enforcement of Nigeria’s most comprehensive framework for regulating digital lending apps.
On April 15, Justice Ambrose Lewis-Allagoa of the Federal High Court in Lagos granted an interim injunction blocking the enforcement of the Digital, Electronic, Online, or Non-Traditional Consumer Lending Regulations 2025, better known as the DEON Regulations.
The order followed an urgent ex parte application filed the previous day by the Wireless Application Service Providers Association of Nigeria (WASPA Nigeria), the industry body representing wireless application service providers operating mainly within the telecoms ecosystem.
The suit targets twelve specific provisions of the text, covering licensing, sanctions, compliance obligations and data-handling rules, according to court documentation published by Lawyard.
Until the next hearing on April 27, 2026, the regulator cannot impose sanctions, enforce compliance directives, or issue new instructions to WASPA members.
The judge also barred the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) from interfering with the ongoing commercial operations of association members.
The case pits two actors whose respective mandates the Nigerian legal framework has never clearly separated.
On one side stands the FCCPC — the federal agency established in 2018 to enforce consumer protection and competition — which gazetted the DEON Regulations on July 21, 2025, under sections 17, 18 and 163 of its founding Act.
In a press statement dated September 3, 2025, Tunji Bello, executive vice chairman, FCCPC, justified the rules by citing “a long history of complaints” involving exploitative practices, data breaches, abusive debt recovery, and harassment.
On the other side, WASPA Nigeria contests the very legitimacy of the FCCPC’s intervention, arguing that services tied to telecoms — airtime credit, data loans, mobile-financing products — fall exclusively under the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms regulator created by the Nigerian Communications Act of 2003.
In the affidavit deposed by Ayo Stuffman, the association contends that the FCCPC is acting ultra vires and creating a regulatory regime parallel to the NCC’s.
A jurisdictional war that stretches far beyond a procedural dispute
The conflict is not limited to a question of legal boundaries. It strikes at the commercial core of the market: who collects the licensing fees, who sets the operational conditions, who governs the financial products embedded in telecom networks.
Nigeria’s consumer credit stock reached 3.82 trillion naira at the end of December 2024, up 21.27% on September, according to Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data relayed by The Cable and AFP.
In the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, personal loans disbursed amounted to approximately 470 billion naira.
A growing share flows through mobile applications and telecom-embedded lending products — including MTN’s MoMo Airtime Lending, operated by the country’s largest telecom operator.
If the court validates WASPA’s position, these products fall outside the FCCPC’s scope and come under the sole authority of the NCC, a regulator historically less active on consumer protection issues.
Available data on demand illustrate the social stakes. Between 2021 and 2023, the FCCPC recorded more than 11,000 consumer complaints for harassment, data abuse and unethical debt recovery practices, according to the agency.
The number of lending applications approved by the FCCPC rose from 269 in September 2024 to 408 in March 2025, while 47 apps were delisted and 88 were placed on the watchlist, according to data compiled by AFP and OneSafe.
The DEON Regulations were meant to introduce interest-rate caps, precontractual disclosure obligations, continuous supervision of recovery practices and fines of up to 100 million naira per violation, according to Legit.ng. The compliance deadline was set for January 5, 2026, and the FCCPC had issued written compliance notices to operators with an April 16 deadline, according to WASPA’s affidavit.
It is precisely this enforcement pressure that triggered the legal challenge.
Federal government has said that Nigeria has no plans to seek a loan from the International Monetary Fund’s proposed $50 billion support package for economies hit by the Middle East crisis.
Wale Edun, minister of Finance, who stated this, said that Nigeria’s current reliance on domestic economic reforms and fund mobilisation was working.
Edun gave these insights during the African Finance Ministers’ briefing, on Thursday, at the ongoing IMF/World Bank annual meetings, in Washington, DC.
He noted that for over two years, Nigeria’s investment in economic reforms have begun to yield results, restoring policy credibility and strengthening the country’s resilience against global economic shocks.
Edun told the global west and the rest of the world that Nigeria now prioritises market-based adjustments, avoiding administrative controls, particularly in foreign exchange and petroleum pricing mechanisms.
His assertion follows the disclosure by the IMF that a possible $50 billion support to cushion vulnerable economies against the crisis in the Middle East, was on the pipeline.
Despite clarifying Nigeria’s lack of interest in borrowing, Edun, urged the IMF to ensure faster financial assistance for African countries who will need help from the $50 billion global support package.
“Nigeria has no plans at the moment to approach the IMF or any other such body,” Edun said, emphasising that Nigeria’s reliance on market mechanisms had led to smoother economic adjustments, reduced disruptions and is sustaining the country’s macroeconomic trajectory.
“The IMF talked about $50 billion and we all know that the funding will largely go to Africa, because those are the most vulnerable countries. And the reality is that what we’re asking for in this instance, is that the funds and the support be released quickly and at scale.
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in collaboration with financial market dealers, has introduced the Nigerian Overnight Financing Rate (NOFR), a standardized benchmark designed to enhance transparency and strengthen monetary policy transmission.
Olayemi Michael Cardoso, CBN gov
Hakama Sidi Ali, spokesperson of the CBN in a statement on Friday, said that the the NOFR is expected to improve price discovery and transparency, while promoting consistent pricing of money market instruments across Nigeria’s financial system.
The regulator noted that the new benchmark positions Africa’s most populous country alongside leading global reference rates such as SOFR in the United States, SONIA in the United Kingdom, €STR in the Eurozone, and TONA in Japan.
“It also complements African benchmarks such as JIBAR (South Africa). Following a stakeholder engagement session held on February 27, 2026, where market participants formally adopted the benchmark, and subsequent regulatory approval, NOFR is now in use, with the CBN serving as the benchmark administrator.
“The bank will ensure governance, transparency, and regular publication of the rate,” CBN stated.
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