OPay has partially lifted the restriction it placed on an account belonging to a student at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna State.

The partial removal, which followed FIJ’s intervention, allowed the student, who does not want to be named, to withdraw the N69,200 balance in her OPay account on Tuesday.

When the student first contacted FIJ last Sunday, she revealed that she had been unable to carry out transactions on her OPay account since the first week of June due to the restriction placed on it.

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“OPay told me I used my account for crypto. I don’t even know anything about crypto. I don’t deal in anything called crypto. I told them to show me proof of how I used my account for crypto, but they couldn’t,” she told FIJ.

The student first noticed the restriction early last month, when a friend’s attempt to send her some money was unsuccessful, as he got a pop-up notification informing him that “the transfer could not be completed due to the restrictions on the recipient’s OPay Account”.

“I thought it wasn’t a big deal, so I tried to buy data on the app, but I couldn’t,” said the student.

“I tried to send the money to my main bank account but couldn’t. I also tried sending it to another OPay account, but it still did not work. I sent an email to OPay on June 5. I also went to the OPay office at Independent Road in Kaduna.”

She was supposed to use part of the money to pay her school fees but had to borrow from her friends to avoid missing the payment deadline.

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When FIJ contacted Adeyemi Adekunle, OPay’s public relations officer, on Tuesday afternoon, he promised to provide feedback after confirming the issue with the team in charge.

“Thanks for reaching out. I will share with the team to confirm the details of this issue and provide feedback. It’s important that we don’t engage in any cryptocurrency trading or activity. Kindly allow me get back to you,” he wrote.

About four hours after he promised to get back to our reporter, he disclosed that the student had been contacted and advised on what to do.

While confirming to FIJ that OPay called her on Tuesday, the student said they apologised and told her she could withdraw her money but added that the restriction on her account was still intact.

“Thank you so much for helping me. I really appreciate it. I was able to remove my money from my account. I’m so grateful,” she wrote.

“They said my account is still restricted because of the cryptocurrency issue, and it will be until it is resolved. If it’s not used for crypto, the restriction will be lifted.”