As FCMB drops 10% in early trading
.The Managing Director of First City Monument Bank Limited (FCMB). , Adam Nuru ,is becoming synonymous with scandals in the recent time and the bank has started counting losses .Nuru shockingly last year claimed he mistakenly” Sent N573 million to a client account . He claimed that the N573 million traced to the church account of Emmanuel Omale, founder of the Divine Hand of God Prophetic Ministries, where Ibrahim Magu, suspended Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), worships, was sent in error.
This raised some dusts of heated controversy against the bank last year . Before the year ran out he has plunged the bank into another controversial storms , the dusts of which are yet to settle . The bank has started getting negative feedbacks from the investors and the general public .The Nigeria’s tier-2 bank, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) recorded significant losses at the first trading session of 2020. At about 10.55 am, the tier-2 Banking stock was tradingat N3.00, printing a decline of 9.91% at the Nigerian bourse. The plunge in share price is largely attributed to growing concerns among investors on recent reports stating the Management of First City Monument Bank Limited (FCMB) had announced it is currently investigating the allegation involving its Managing Director, Adam Nuru. . FCMB began the year with a share price of 3.33 NGN but has since lost 6.01% off that price valuation, ranking it 161st on the NSE in terms of year-to-date performance
The Management of First City Monument Bank Limited (FCMB) has announced that it is currently investigating the allegation involving its Managing Director, Adam Nuru.
This is according to an exclusive press release made available to the press and signed by the Head of Corporate Affairs, FCMB Group, Diran Olojo. In response to the allegations, FCMB Group informed stakeholders and the general public that it is currently conducting a review of what transpired, to ascertain if there are violations of code of ethics or mere allegations.
Commenting on the recent development, Diran Olojo, said ‘’We are aware of several stories circulating across several media platforms about our bank’s Managing Director, Adam Nuru, a former employee, Ms Moyo Thomas and her deceased husband, Mr Tunde Thomas. ‘’While this is a personal matter, the tragedy of the death of Mr Tunde Thomas and the allegations of unethical conduct requires the bank’s board to conduct a review of what transpired, any violations of our code of ethics and the adequacy of these code of conduct ethics. This will be done immediately. ‘’We enjoin all our stakeholders to bear with us as we conduct this review and to please respect the various families involved.’’ Recall that the social media and internet space has been buzzing following an allegation of extra-marital affairs involving the Managing Director of the Bank, Adam Nuru, and a former employee known as Moyo Thomas, part of which allegedly led to the death of the latter’s husband, Tunde Thomas.
Nuru made the shocking claim while facing the Justice Ayo Salami panel that is investigating the financial allegations made against Magu. The N573 million was sent to the account in 2016, but FCMB’s Nuru said the mistake wasn’t noticed until four years after.
The company only realized it accidentally sent funds belonging to other customers to an account owned by Magu’s Pastor when the panel invited the bank to explain the money traced to the account No: 1486743019, Business Day reported. The Pastor was said to have bought a property for Magu in Dubai from the N573 million after allegedly laundering the money.
How FCMB “Mistakenly” Transferred N573m To The Church Account
While defending the action of FCMB, Nuru said FCMB made an error in its return to the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) while moving customers’ balance during an upgrade of one of its application tools. That was how the N573 million was sent to the clergy.
But shockingly, in the last three years, despite the enormous size of the money, FCMB didn’t discover the mistake under Nuru until the panel began an investigation into Magu in July and the panel summoned FCMB management after tracing the amount linked to Magu’s financial discrepancies to FCMB.
While explaining to the panel on Thursday, August 6, 2020, Nuru said, “This return was said to be in favour of Divine Hand of God Prophetic Ministries Account No 1486743019,” He said, adding that, “After that report, we conducted an investigation and discovered that the lodgement which we reported to NFIU was an error.
“The error was as a result of the fact that we were using a bank application called Pinnacle-7. However, we migrated from that application to a newer version called Pinnacle-10.
“Usually, when the bank intends to migrate from one application to another, we utilize weekends to carry out the exercise. The migration involves moving all the balances of customers from the previous application to the new application. The account of the Divine Hand Ministries was moved during that migration.
“In that branch, we have 983 accounts (Banex). The credit balance in all the 983 accounts domiciled came to the aforesaid amount. It was that balance of N573 million that was wrongly posted as an inflow into Divine Hand Ministries as reported to NFIU,” he said.
The FCMB boss also defended his claim with another shocking statement by disclosing that the transfer error which was done four years ago also happened to 27 other accounts.
