Mberede Lovelyn Chiamaka has awaited justice from the United Bank for Africa (UBA) for the past three months, after she and four others were defrauded of N15 million inside the bank by Monday Sule Ilemona, a then staff member of United Bank for Africa (UBA).

Monday had marketed the UBA Target Account to Chiamaka, her husband and neighbours. At the time, Monday presented himself as a staff of UBA Oshodi branch, and carried out transactions on behalf of UBA inside the bank’s premises.

READ ALSO: How UBA’s Monday Ilemona Duped Five Customers of N15m Right Inside the Bank’s Premises

On April 8, FIJ had reported on the fraud Monday had committed. Ramon Nasir, UBA’s Group Head of Media and External Relations told FIJ that immediately after seeing the story, the Head of Internal Control had written to the bank’s Head of Customer Service and an Executive Director to investigate the issue and find an immediate resolution to the matter.

In fact. Nasir had said the bank would “resolve it as quickly as we can and to the benefit of the complainant”.

“I can assure you that from the responses I have had this morning, the investigation is ongoing,” he said. “This issue will be resolved and an amicable resolution will be met.”

Nasir had also explained that even though Monday was most probably acting on his own personal volition, it didn’t excuse the responsibility of the bank to the customer.

“The customer is not responsible to start identifying whether the staff of any institution is real or not real,” he said. “The guy holds an ID Card so he is an agent of the bank. We will find a resolution to this. We will resolve it as quickly as we can and to the benefit of the complainant.”

However, three months later, Chiamaka has not been contacted by UBA. Not a phone call was made, or a text message sent to invite her to settle the issue she had. She told FIJ that UBA’s failure to reach out to her means they don’t care and are heartless. “They have rendered me useless simply because I trusted their bank,” she said.

She expected that UBA would at least contact them and invite them to hear their own side of the story. None of that happened.

Her husband has been dealing with depression and her baby has taken ill. “Right now I can’t afford hospital bill, I can’t even buy drugs. We are planning on relocating to the village but our landlord gave us more months because he knew what happened.”

The landlord gave them a grace of six months when their rent expired in January. However with no source of income, raising their rent poses to be a challenge and relocating to the village might be the last option they are left with.

“We are begging some of our family and friends if I can start any roadside business with at least N100,000, anything to start life with,” she says in between sighs.

Back in January, the legal service division of UBA had responded to a letter by Chiamaka’s lawyer, saying: “The bank did not defraud your clients as alleged. Your client and Monday Sule were involved in a private investment scheme.”

READ ALSO: UBA Begins ‘Immediate Investigation’ of N15m Monday Ilemona Fraud Case

Chiamaka who had just given birth when the fraud took place told FIJ the business she and her husband ran had to be shut down as they were left with nothing. In between suffering financial loss, her brother was involved in an accident, and she has been unable to help out with footing the medical bills.

“The little money we have in our hands is what we used in fighting this case from Area F to Zone 2 from Zone 2 to court,” Chiamaka said.

Getting justice has been hard. Her husband has now been forced to look for menial jobs with lowly wages just ot keep a glimmer of hope burning.

FIJ reached out to Nasir on UBA’s promise to find a resolution but got no response to both phone calls and text messages.