Fagbemi Olushola, a Lagos-based employee of the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company (NAHCO), has accused Zenith Bank of negligence over the mysterious transfer of N221,000 from his account to a Sterling Bank account with the name ‘Abanum Nwabogor’ on August 23.

While speaking with FIJ, Fagbemi said apart from having N221,000 in his account prior to the incident, he was also expecting a payment of N325,000 from someone.

“I was at my place of work, NAHCO, when the person called me that he had sent the N325,000 into my account. As I went to my phone to check for a notification, I noticed that my bank had sent me multiple alerts showing that a total of N221,000 had been transferred from my account to a Sterling Bank account with the name ‘Abanum Nwabogor,'” he said.

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Fagbemi said the moment he received the debit alerts, he hurried to the Zenith Bank branch close to NAHCO to lodge a complaint and also request that a restriction be urgently placed on his account to prevent the N325,000 received from being stolen.

“The bank said they did not have network, so they quickly helped me call their headquarters to lock my account. I had to go to the Zenith Bank branch along airport road to report the issue, and they asked me to write a letter, which I did. I later asked them to unlock the account so I could withdraw the N325,000 I had in there,” he said.

“Since then, I’ve been asking Zenith Bank for updates, but they kept saying that they’d sent an email to their headquarters but got no response.

“I subsequently sent a mail to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), copying Zenith Bank, but all I got from the CBN was an automated message. I also called them on their toll-free line, but all they said to me was to get a court order first.

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“When I attempted to get the court order, the lawyer told me that the amount I’d spend getting a court order would almost be equivalent to the N221,000 I wanted to recover from the bank.

“I am confused. Is it that these people are encouraging fraud? Zenith Bank should refund my money.”

FIJ sent an email to Zenith Bank for comments, but it had not been responded to at press time.