Kayode Aremu Festus, a Dubai-based Nigerian, has narrated how N2.23 million went missing from his Union Bank account last year.

Festus told FIJ that his SIM card, where he usually received bank alerts, got damaged while he was in Dubai. As a result of this, he did not receive any debit or credit alerts while he was there.

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According to him, since he could not retrieve the SIM card while in Dubai, he planned to do so whenever he was back in Nigeria.

“I did not throw the card away despite that it was damaged. I thought my money was safe in the bank, and I had plans to withdraw the money once I got to the country,” he said.

When he returned to Nigeria in November 2021, he went to the branch of Union Bank in Sango-Ota, Ogun State, to request his statement of account and ultimately withdraw some money.

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Festus would then discover from the statement of account that an unknown person had cleared his balance between May 21 and 24 of last year.

“The person removed N1.23 million from my account on May 21 while N1 million went missing again on May 24. I was surprised because the last transaction I authorised was on May 5, 2021,” he said.

“On the 21st, N1 million was transferred to one UBA account number, and it belongs to Maureen Onye Isinetugo. Another N1 million was transferred to the same person on the 24th. On that same day, N230,000 was moved to a GTB account number that belongs to Iheme Ebubechukwu.”

Festus further told FIJ that immediately he noticed the strange transactions, he reported the incident to the branch manager.

He said the manager’s response was discouraging, and his complaint was not taken seriously.

“After a month of reporting the incident to them, I was told to report to the police or a legal advisor. That was in December. I went to the police station in Sango-Ota to lodge a complaint. They said they would track the phone numbers of the two beneficiaries,” he said.

“However, in January, the police said they could not locate the owners. Since then, it’s been difficult to survive because I was depending on that money. I don’t even have the money to get a court order. I have not been able to return to Dubai because of this. I told the bank my ordeal, but nothing good has come out of it.”

When FIJ contacted Union Bank on Friday, a customer care agent who introduced herself as Chioma, said, “We have escalated to the beneficiary’s bank, but are yet to get a response from them.”

She added: “We have escalated to the handling unit. We await feedback from them.”