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Olusegun Alebiosu’s Leadership Questioned as Fraud Scandals Rock First Bank
…Cases of Customers’ Funds Illegally Accessed Become Worryingly Frequent in First Bank
Banking thrives on trust — depositors rely on their banks to safeguard their money, while banks are expected to put robust measures in place to uphold that trust. However, in the case of First Bank under the leadership of Managing Director Olusegun Alebiosu, that trust appears to be eroding fast.
Once regarded as a financial fortress, First Bank is now facing allegations of rampant fraud, with both internal and external perpetrators reportedly having unfettered access to customer accounts. The situation has raised alarm across the industry, as fraud incidents within the bank have become increasingly frequent since 2024 — the very year Mr. Alebiosu took over.
First Bank, Nigeria’s oldest bank, has historically enjoyed a reputation built on customer loyalty and decades of reliability. But that image has been badly tarnished in recent months. According to industry watchers, the level of fraudulent activity is unprecedented, with some linking the escalation directly to lapses in the bank’s current management structure while some were of the notion that it is due to the incompetence of those at the helms of the bank affairs.
There has been so many issues with unauthorised transfer of deposit and withdrawal associated with the bank in recent times. This write up will be mentioning two of such incidents; one of such is the case of a customer whose video was posted on social media sometimes in July when she stormed a branch of First bank in Ibadan, Oyo State after her savings of N949,000 vanished from her account. In the video the distraught depositor was heard saying that her account was emptied without any form of notification like sms alert or email and while they were told to exercise patience the branch manager invited policemen to come and arrest them.
Similar incident is that of Charles Mary, a struggling entrepreneur, who is a customer of the bank. According to her a client paid a certain amount into her account on Friday 18th July, meant to execute the supply of certain materials, she decided to withdraw some money to pay for some of the materials needed through the First Bank ATM machine in Opebi around 5pm of the same day.
She explained that the ATM machine of First Bank at that branch did not dispense and she removed her card after few seconds and to her surprise she started receiving alerts while still in the vicinity of the bank.
To her surprise her account was not debited the amount she hope to withdraw from the ATM, instead debit alerts of five hundred thousand (500,000), two hundred thousand (200,000), ninety nine thousand (99,000) and fifty thousand (50,000) naira were received, without her compromising her account details in any form.
Findings revealed, it has become a pattern in First Bank, as customers details are exposed to activities of fraudsters, going by recent occurrence, many staffs of the bank are found to be working with these set of people.
Investigation shows two patterns that the fraudsters have been employing, the first style is that where alerts are not sent during and after the act, while the second is the illegal transfers and deduction being effected after closing of work on Friday so any action will wait till Monday since financial institutions don’t work on weekends.
While some customers are abandoning their account after transferring to other banks, some believed the bank will soon get it right. For many customers that are still holding on, the question on their minds remains: Can First Bank under Olusegun Alebiosu still guarantee the safety of their money?
