Alleged Secret Shareholding: Civic Group Calls for Urgent EFCC, CBN Probe of Fidelity Bank

25 September 2026
The Executive Chairman
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Plot 1, EFCC Crescent, Jabi District
Abuja, FCT
AND

The Governor
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Plot 33, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Way
Central Business District, Abuja, FCT
THROUGH: The Director, Banking Supervision Department, CBN; and the Director of Operations, EFCC

Dear Sirs,
PETITION FOR IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION INTO ALLEGED INSIDER DEALING, BENEFICIAL-OWNERSHIP CONCEALMENT, FINANCIAL IRREGULARITIES AND AN ATTEMPTED COVERT TAKEOVER OF FIDELITY BANK PLC

1.0 INTRODUCTION AND LOCUS

The Transparency Network and Public Interest Initiative is a civic advocacy platform committed to the protection of depositors, minority shareholders, the integrity of Nigeria’s capital market, and the insulation of systemically important financial institutions from partisan capture.

We write in the public interest, pursuant to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, the Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020, the Investments and Securities Act, the CBN Code of Corporate Governance for Banks, and the NGX Listing Rules governing insider dealing and disclosure of persons of significant control.

We hereby petition both the EFCC and the CBN to act with urgency. Silence in the face of the allegations now in the public domain would amount to regulatory abdication.

2.0 THE GRAVE ALLEGATIONS NOW IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

On 25 September 2026, Sahara Reporters published an exclusive report titled “Fidelity Bank Shareholders Raise Alarm Over Peter Obi’s Alleged Use Of Fronts To Amass Shares” The report, corroborated in substance by other outlets the same day, records allegations by shareholders that:

A. Mr. Peter Gregory Obi, former Governor of Anambra State, former Chairman of Fidelity Bank Plc, and the 2027 presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), is alleged to be accumulating a controlling or near-controlling beneficial interest in Fidelity Bank Plc through proxies, fronts and related parties, with an aggregate beneficial interest claimed by sources to be in the region of 29.5 per cent;

B. The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity Bank Plc, Dr. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, who according to the Bank’s 2025 disclosures held 145,846,128 ordinary shares (less than one per cent of the then 50.2 billion shares outstanding) and who in May 2025 acquired a further 18 million shares for approximately ₦366 million, is alleged by sources to be holding interests “that belong to Peter” and to be acting as a front;

These allegations sit on top of an earlier, still unresolved public controversy. In May 2025, the same Managing Director’s purchase of 18 million Fidelity shares was the subject of published accusations of insider dealing and of the use of the Bank’s funds. The Bank and NGX RegCo asserted that the trade occurred in an open window after the 2025 Q1 unaudited financial statements. That explanation, even if accepted on its face, does not dispose of the later and far more serious claim that the Managing Director’s holding is beneficially owned by a politically exposed person seeking control of the institution.

Fidelity Bank Plc is a systemically important, publicly listed deposit-taking institution with hundreds of thousands of shareholders. As at 31 December 2025 the Bank reported 525,912 shareholders and stated that no single shareholder held up to five per cent. That official picture is now in direct collision with allegations of a concealed 29.5 per cent beneficial block.
If those allegations are true, Nigeria is looking at: concealment of persons of significant control; possible insider dealing and use of privileged information and corporate structures to tilt a shareholding contest; possible laundering or disguise of political finance as securities transactions; and an attempt to place a deposit-money bank under the effective influence of a serving presidential candidate. If they are false, only a competent, public investigation can restore confidence. Either way, the present opacity is intolerable.

Mr. Obi’s historic association with the Bank as former Chairman does not confer any continuing entitlement to its share register, its treasury, or its governance. On the contrary, that history heightens the conflict-of-interest risk. A politically exposed person who once sat at the head of the board, and who now seeks the highest elective office in the Federation, cannot be permitted to treat a licensed bank as a private war chest or a silent campaign vehicle.

The Initiative draws the attention of both institutions to the following public-interest harms, which are already materialising:

First. The Bank has been dragged into partisan warfare. Shareholders themselves are quoted as saying they “don’t want the bank in politics so that it will not affect the bank.” That warning is not theoretical. Every new allegation of fronts, proxy accumulation and campaign-money recycling converts Fidelity from a commercial franchise into a political exhibit.

Second. Unnecessary and sustained regulatory, media and market scrutiny is now hanging over the institution. Counterparties, correspondent banks, rating agencies and ordinary depositors are entitled to know whether the Bank is being steered by disclosed commercial owners or by an undisclosed political principal. Ambiguity of this kind is itself a prudential risk.

Third. The Managing Director’s own share purchases, already once the subject of insider-dealing accusations, have been recast by sources as instruments of another man’s control. That is a reputational catastrophe for the office of the CEO and for the Board that is supposed to supervise her.

Fourth. A contest between a presidential candidate and another politically exposed commercial actor for control of the same bank recreates the very pattern that previously brought Fidelity under EFCC scrutiny in the Diezani Alison-Madueke era, when the Commission examined large transactions alleged to have been used for electoral influence. The Bank cannot be allowed to become, a second time, a theatre of political money.

Fifth. Any attempt to use inside dealing, privileged access to willing sellers, management influence, or undisclosed related-party structures to confer an advantage on Mr. Obi in the shareholding arrangement would be a direct assault on the level playing field that CBN ownership rules and SEC/NGX disclosure rules exist to protect.

The EFCC is the competent authority to investigate insider dealing, concealment of beneficial ownership, money laundering, abuse of corporate structures, and the possible conversion of political donations into securities transactions. The CBN is the competent authority to examine the fitness and propriety of significant shareholders and directors, to enforce BOFIA limits on holdings, to stop an unapproved change of control, and to protect depositors from political capture of a licensed bank.

Neither institution can treat this as a newspaper quarrel. The allegations, if substantiated, disclose predicate offences and prudential breaches. The allegations, if unsubstantiated, still require a formal finding so that the Bank, its staff and its minority shareholders are not left to bleed under innuendo.

OUR DEMANDS

ACCORDINGLY, the Transparency Network and Public Interest Initiative hereby demands as follows:

1. That the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission immediately open a full criminal investigation into the accusations of insider dealing, use of fronts and proxies, concealment of beneficial ownership, and financial irregularities involving the Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Plc, Dr. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe; Mr. Peter Gregory Obi; and every person, company, trustee, nominee or intermediary alleged to have participated in the accumulation or warehousing of Fidelity Bank shares for the benefit of either contestant for control;

2. That the investigation expressly cover the May 2025 acquisition of 18 million shares by the Managing Director; all subsequent acquisitions by her, by related parties and by alleged fronts; the source of funds for those purchases; whether any material non-public information, management influence or Bank resources were used; and whether any of those holdings are beneficially owned by Mr. Peter Obi or any politically exposed person;

3. That the Central Bank of Nigeria immediately commence a thorough special examination of Fidelity Bank Plc covering ownership, related-party exposures, fitness and propriety of significant shareholders and senior management, compliance with BOFIA and CBN holdings thresholds, and any attempt, completed, ongoing or contemplated to use inside dealing or undisclosed arrangements to confer an advantage on Mr. Peter Obi in the shareholding structure of the Bank;
4. That the CBN, pending the outcome of that examination, take every lawful step to freeze any further accretion of influence by undisclosed beneficial owners, to compel full beneficial-ownership declarations from the Managing Director and from Mr. Obi.
5. That both the EFCC and the CBN obtain and examine the Bank’s share register, CSCS records, off-market deal tickets, source-of-funds documentation, politically exposed persons files, and all internal communications touching the Managing Director’s share dealings and any approach by or on behalf of Mr. Obi or his alleged proxies; and
6. That the EFCC investigate the Managing Director of Fidelity Bank Plc, Mr. Peter Gregory Obi, and every other person, nominee, vehicle or intermediary involved in the alleged covert takeover of Fidelity Bank Plc, and, where the evidence so warrants, commence prosecution without fear or favour.

A deposit-money bank is not a campaign committee. It is not a private trophy. It is not a warehouse for undisclosed political capital. Fidelity Bank Plc has already been forced to issue public denials. Those denials, however robustly worded, cannot be the last word. Only an independent investigation by the EFCC and a forensic ownership examination by the CBN can determine whether the Bank is being quietly captured, whether its Managing Director has been used as a conduit, and whether inside dealing is being deployed to give Mr. Peter Obi an illegitimate advantage in the shareholding arrangement.

The Initiative therefore calls on the EFCC to move immediately, and on the CBN to move concurrently. Every day of delay is another day in which control of a public bank may be rearranged behind the backs of depositors, minority shareholders and the Nigerian public.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Ehizojie Emmanuel Anderson
Convener
The Transparency Network and Public Interest Initiative

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