By Mogaji Wole Arisekola
If your money goes missing in any bank, don’t be too quick to look outside. The person you are looking for may be among those you entrusted to take care of your money.
Last week, I went out with my friends, and our bill came to about ₦1.4 million. I asked the salesman who attended to us for his company’s account number. He called out the number, and I transferred the exact amount.
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But as I approached the door, the salesman informed me that the money had not arrived in the company’s account. He asked me to check the account details I had used. When I asked him to repeat the number, behold, he had missed one digit.
He told me I had transferred the money to the wrong person. To avoid embarrassment, I asked for the correct account details, which he provided. I immediately transferred another ₦1.4 million, and he confirmed receipt.
I left the shop and quickly alerted my bank that I had made a transfer to the wrong account. They requested the receipt and details of the transaction.
The following day, Monday, I lodged a complaint with my account officer. She immediately escalated it to her supervisor, who handles wrong transfers. The supervisor contacted the receiving bank, Access Bank. My account officer advised me to obtain a court order because Access Bank might require it.
On Tuesday morning, Chinenye Maureen Nwachucku of Access Bank, whose phone number is 08064694080, emailed my bank to say that the account was not funded for the recall. In other words, there was supposedly no money left in it.
Friends who knew about the transaction and Access Bank’s response advised me to forget about it and move on. They believed that the recipient might have emptied the account immediately after the money arrived. The transfer details were:
– Recipient: Mr Soyoye Taofeek
– Account number: 0034417942
– Bank: Access Bank
– Amount: ₦1,407,803.75
But I was not deterred. I called a friend who is a senior official at the EFCC and narrated my ordeal. He asked whether I had a court order. I said yes and forwarded it to him.
Within five minutes, he got back to me. According to him, contrary to the message sent by Ms Nwachucku of Access Bank , the money was still in the recipient’s account.
The EFCC helped me contact the account holder, and he immediately transferred the money back to my account.
My question is: why did Ms Chinenye Maureen Nwachucku of Access Bank say there was no money in the account to which I had mistakenly transferred the funds? I believe this calls for an explanation. Only God knows how many people may have given up after receiving a similar response.
Nigeria is the only country I know where bank managing directors live like kings and fly private jets, yet we, the masses, vent our anger and frustration only on politicians.
Fraud committed by some rogue bank officials and their partners in crime deserves the full force of the law. Some of them are seen hobnobbing with people in power, perhaps hoping their sins will be covered. But there is always the law of karma. Bad eggs in the banking industry do not end well.
Remember the First Bank staff member whose job was to process refunds for failed transactions? He was accused of enriching himself with billions of naira belonging to customers.
Tijani Muiz Adeyinka’s job gave him legitimate access to process reversals for failed customer transactions. He allegedly used that access to credit merchant accounts with money that was not theirs.
The fraudulent postings allegedly went first to his wife Dorcas’s Nigerian bank account, then to 34 other accounts, before spreading to 1,190 secondary accounts across multiple banks.
By the time First Bank noticed and reported the matter to the Nigeria Police Force on 25 March 2024, the figure had reportedly grown from ₦12 billion to ₦40 billion. He was already on the run.
Three court orders were obtained across Lagos and Jalingo to freeze accounts. Some of the money had already been converted to USDT through crypto traders.
The sums of ₦1.17 billion, £35,070 and $392,818 were recovered from Mr Adeyinka and forfeited, even though he and his wife were on the run. The recovered funds were transferred to First Bank.
The following properties were also recovered from the couple and transferred to First Bank:
In Lagos, they include Plot 9, Block 28, Itunu City, Veritas Homes & Properties Ltd., Aiyetoro, Epe; a three-bedroom flat described as Block A, Floor 6, Flat 2 (Block A/6/2), Le Moriah Residences Estate, off Kusenla Road, Ikate Ancient City, Lekki Peninsula, Eti-Osa Local Government Area; and a parcel of land at Block L1, Plot 13, Amen Estate, Phase III Extension, Abomiti Zone, Lekki–Epe Expressway, Epe LGA.
They also include a parcel of land at Block 3, Plot 13, Arizon Estate, within Idera Scheme Allocation via Eleko Junction, Ibeju-Lekki LGA; one plot of land within Arizon Estate, Idera Scheme, Ibeju-Lekki LGA; and another plot within Itunu Residential, Aiyetoro, Ibeju-Lekki LGA.
There is also a parcel of land known as Plot 7, Block 4, Itunu City, Veritas Homes & Properties Ltd., Aiyetoro, Epe LGA; and a parcel of land at Block Q, Plot 25, Tiara by Amen City Limited, along the Lekki–Epe Expressway, Yeguda Resettlement Scheme.
The Abuja property is a parcel of land known as Plot 1, Ido Gwari 2 Extension, within Ochacho Real Homes, Ido Gwari 2 Extension, Life Camp, Abuja.
Last year, Wema Bank lost ₦847.6 million to fraud that reportedly could not be recovered.
Also last year, seven people, including three Wema Bank employees, were arraigned by the EFCC over an alleged ₦8.5 billion banking fraud in Lagos.
These were not hackers breaking into the system. They were insiders already inside it.
On 23 May 2025, the EFCC brought the suspects before Justice Daniel Osiagor at the Federal High Court in Ikoyi over a scheme investigators said involved manipulating internal banking processes.
Three of the suspects were Wema Bank staff:
– Samuel Ihechukwu Asiegbu
– Fabian Chizaram Onyeimachi
– Kingsley Kelechi Ejim
They allegedly worked with four external accomplices:
– Hannah Okunlola Adesokan
– Hamza Zakariya
– Achionu Chukwuka Ubaku
– Sunday Osademe
According to the EFCC, the group tampered with internal banking data and transaction records tied to accounts domiciled at Wema Bank. Investigators said the manipulation took place around January 2025.
The altered records allegedly allowed fraudulent transactions to be triggered within the bank’s systems, leading to the diversion of about ₦8,568,090,500. That is over ₦8.5 billion moved through allegedly manipulated internal systems.
About 87 per cent of the cases were internal and involved staff. This is what insider fraud can look like in Nigerian banking. No dramatic hack: just a staff member, a privileged function and no second authorisation required.
If your system allows one person to trigger financial transactions without a second layer of approval, that is a vulnerability. Segregation of duties is not bureaucracy. It is what stands between your system and ₦40 billion walking out the door.
Mr Soyoye Taofeek demonstrated a core value of Islam by returning the money. I congratulate him for being a good ambassador of his religion.
And to Ms Chinenye Maureen Nwachucku of Access Bank: I have recovered my money. May God reward you according to your deeds.
No sinner will go unpunished by Allah.
Please see the attached email sent by Maureen Nwachucku of Access Bank.
Mogaji Wole Arisekola writes from Ibadan.
