Nigerian Bank Guns for Ghana Judge after DDEP Bond Heist Fallout
Nigerian interloper First Atlantic Bank is weaponising a Chief Justice petition to kneecap a Ghanaian judge, dodging a GHS 8.5m High Court slap after its rogue DDEP bond grab blew up in Commercial Court 6.
Suit GJ/0737/2023 (Vihama Energy v First Atlantic) exposed the bank’s gall: snatching Vihama’s GoG-26 and ESLA-31 bonds prime loan collateral and force-feeding them into the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) without the owners consent.
Vihama, loan repayments ticked off, lost GHS 8.5m coupons in the mess. Bonds bounced back post-suit, nuking First Atlantic’s “doom-loop” excuse (High Court ruling, 11 Dec 2025; docket ref. GJ/0737/2023).
A 2023 Akufo-Addo firestorm IMF-mandated haircut on GHS 137bn domestic debt to avert default amid cedi collapse.
Banks like First Atlantic, per Bank of Ghana filings (Dec 2023), clutched GHS 40bn+ in bonds as client shields, tendering willy-nilly. Vihama lawyers Paapa Darkwah’s riposte to CJ Paul Baffoe-Bonnie dubs First Atlantic’s judge-bashing petition “mischievous distortions” a post-loss bid to scandalise Justice Sedina Agbemava for “unfairness.”
First Atlantic’s warpath: fee nitpicks (High Court boot, 2023), serial Court of Appeal stays (limine-dumped, appeal ghosted), July ’23 strike-out (axed), Jan ’24 dismissal lunge (trounced as “unmeritorious”). Court set 30 Jul ’25 closings deadline (10 Nov); bank slopped in four months late judgment eve. Now whines of bias Laughable: full trial fireworks, no prior gripes (Darkwah letter).
Ownership sting: First Atlantic, Lagos-headquartered with Ghana ops since 2015 (BoG licence), funnels Nigerian capital into cedis via bond-lending traps. Critics (e.g., Business & Financial Times, Nov 2025) finger such “Afri-bankers” for DDEP opportunism hoard collateral, trigger exchanges, pocket haircuts.
Petition’s Ghanaian-staff sob story? Darkwah: “No shield for misconduct.” Smells like xenophobic deflection amid John Mahama’s 2025 debt-reset vows, echoing anti-Nigeria bank murmurs (Parliamentary Select Cttee hearings, Oct 2025).
Sources close to Judicial Service whisper: petition reeks of forum-shopping to derail execution, pending Vihama appeal. First Atlantic zipped on queries; Vihama hunts dues. If CJ bites, Ghana’s bench DDEP-ravaged crumbles to foreign-bank arm-twisting. Alchemy or accountability?