THE REPUBLIC NEWSPAPER

ATLANTA – Allen Ifechukwu Athan Onyema, the Chairman, CEO, and founder of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, has been charged with bank fraud and money laundering for moving more than $20 million from Nigeria through United States bank accounts in a scheme involving false documents based on the purchase of airplanes.  The international airline’s Chief of Administration and Finance, Ejiroghene Eghagha, has also been charged with bank fraud and committing aggravated identity theft in connection with the scheme. “Onyema allegedly leveraged his status as a prominent business leader and airline executive while using falsified documents to commit fraud,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak.  “We will diligently protect the integrity our banking system from being corrupted by criminals, even when they disguise themselves in a cloak of international business.” Robert J. Murphy, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA Atlanta Field Division commented on the indictment, “Allen O...

Two bank executives of the United Bank for Africa, UBA have been apprehended by the Police over the armed robbery that took place Thursday in Oye, Ekiti State, South West Nigeria.   The Ekiti State Police Command stated this at a briefing during his visit to the scene of crime saying, the two management staff of UBA were fingered and subsequently arrested by detectives following investigations into the bloody bank heist that claimed the lives of two residents of the University community.  According to the Commissioner of Police in the state, Asuqo Amba, the sum of N25 million and specified amount of foreign currency , were discovered to have been carted away by the robbers, while a police sergeant and a 7-year-old girl were killed. The Police boss stated that the robbers attacked the Divisional Police station in Oye Ekiti and burnt a police van used to block Ilupeju-Oye highway after they robbed for over 30 minutes. Asuqo averred that there was internal connivance between...

In the wake of President Muhammadu Buhari’s order directing a Forensic Audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) under the direct supervision of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Senator Godswill Akpabio, CON, several misguided statements drawing mischievous innuendoes alleging that the Audit is targeted at the immediate past Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)  and Governorship Candidate of the APC in the March 9, 2019 Governorship Elections in Akwa Ibom State, His Excellency Mr. Nsima Ekere, have flooded the media space. Having elevated such puerile narratives to unimaginable proportions, our attention has also been drawn to an ambitious but poorly cobbled and error-ridden report claiming amongst others, that Mr. Nsima Ekere sees the audit exercise as “witch-hunting” and has therefore vowed not to “go down alone”. The said verbose and reckless report is clearly a poor mimicry of Mr. Ekere. This is so because there is a unanimous unive...