ACCESS BANK REFUTES GMD'S ARREST CLAIM THAT HAD GAINED TRACTION.

Much as the news had gone near viral about the arrest of the hardworking Herbert Wigwe who is the GMD of Nigeria's current biggest financial institution after it had merged with Diamond Bank to now become a banking powerhouse now known as Access Bank Plc, the bank has had come out to vehemently refute the claim of arrest, that it is very very far from the truth.

All of last week and even till this weekend, the news has gone about that the EFCC had arrested Herbert Wigwe. Much as we had tried to get clarification from the right quarters about the supposed arrest, the bank had only subtly said the arrest claim was not entirely true, but even with that, the story had refused to go to sleep, not until the bank had to now officially send out a statement, especially to the Nigerian Stock Exchange to powerfully refute the claim.

See the official statement above signed by the bank's Company Secretary, Sunday Ekwochi.

See the statement sent to the NSE here -

Our attention has been drawn to a trending report on social media regarding the alleged arrest of Mr. Herbert Wigwe, the Group Managing Director of Access Bank Plc (Access Bank) by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (“the Commission”).

We wish to state that the issue essentially relates to the credit facilities that were availed Slok Nigeria Limited (“Slok”) by the defunct Diamond Bank plc (“Diamond”) and which were secured by Slok’s assets charged to Diamond. Access Bank had inherited the Slok credit following the recent merger of Diamond with Access Bank.

Given the differing interest of the Commission and the Bank on the assets of Slok deriving from the court’s recent judgment on Slok, the Commission had invited for interrogation officials of Access Bank who were handling the Bank’s recovery efforts on Slok credit including its Group Managing Director.

Following fruitful engagement between the Bank and the Commission, we are of the opinion that the issues relating to Slok investigation have been resolved.

As an institution built on best practice, we wish to assure our esteemed stakeholders that the Bank will continue to conduct its business in line with extant laws and relations

Sunday Ekwochi

Company secretary