By SCM Staff Writer I Tuesday, Sept 30, 2025
LAGOS—A former employee of United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA), Anthony Ifeanyi Adigwe, has lost his suit at the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), Lagos, in which he sought an outstanding balance of N8,817,231.50 as interest on his accrued gratuity.
The court, presided over by Hon. Justice Ikechi Gerald Nweneka, on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, dismissed the entire suit, holding that the claimant failed to prove his entitlement to the interest he sought and that the bank had no obligation to account for the utilisation of the funds.
Mr. Adigwe, who served the bank for 35 years and retired in December 2017, had sued UBA seeking:
An order directing the bank to render an account of the utilisation of his N7,626,632.41 accrued gratuity, which the bank allegedly held from August 2009 until December 2017.
An order directing the bank to declare the profits made from the use of the fund.
The sum of N8,817,231.50, representing the outstanding balance of a N15,306,963.42 interest claim, after the bank had paid him N6,489,731.92 in September 2019.
In his judgment, Justice Nweneka first dismissed a preliminary objection by the bank’s counsel that the suit was statute-barred.
The court held that the cause of action accrued in December 2017 when the claimant retired, not in 2009, making the filing of the suit in December 2019 valid under the Lagos State Limitation Law.
However, the judge ruled against Mr. Adigwe on all his substantive claims.
On the Duty to Account: Justice Nweneka held that the claimant failed to establish a fiduciary relationship—such as that of an agent or trustee—between himself and the bank that would impose a duty on UBA to account for the utilisation of his gratuity.
The court noted that a breach of the Pension Reform Act, which required the transfer of the funds to a Retirement Savings Account, should have been addressed with a claim for damages, not an action for an account.
On Interest Claim: The court found an inconsistency in the claimant’s evidence, noting he claimed interest rates ranging from 20% to 25% but pegged his outstanding balance on a 12.5% rate.
Furthermore, the judge calculated that applying a 12.5% interest rate to the principal for the claimed nine-year period did not mathematically yield the total interest of N15,306,963.42 he alleged.
Justice Nweneka emphasised that the burden of proving the entitlement to a specific interest rate, as well as the calculation, lay with the claimant, a burden he failed to discharge.
The court concluded that since the bank’s witness confirmed the earlier payment of N6,489,731.92 as the accrued interest, and the claimant did not successfully rebut this, all claims for outstanding interest were unproven.
In the final analysis, the court dismissed all five reliefs sought by Mr. Adigwe, including the claims for post-judgment interest and the cost of the action, stating, “This suit fails, and it is dismissed. Parties shall bear their costs.”
