A staff of the Lagos State University (LASU), Ojo, Mr Johnson Ademola, died Monday afternoon in a bank queue in the institution while trying to withdraw cash.
Reports of Ademola’s demise emerged online, as some news outlets (not REPORTERS AT LARGE) said the deceased was one of the institution’s deputy bursars.
It was gathered that the incident happened at a branch of Wema Bank in the university where the deceased went to withdraw some money.
According to reports, the bank was allegedly allowing customers to withdraw a maximum of N5,000, fuelling the online reports that Ademola had died while in the queue to withdraw N5,000.
Ademola, who until his death was the Financial Officer of the Faculty of Law and an Executive Officer in the Accounts Department of the institution, was said to have slumped while waiting in the queue for his turn to withdraw cash. Efforts to revive him reportedly proved abortive.
It was gathered that the deceased was subsequently rushed to the University Health Centre where he was certified dead.
An employee of the university, who did not want his name in print because he was not authorised to speak on the issue, confirmed the incident to our correspondent Tuesday afternoon.
He said, “It is true. We were all shocked when we heard about it yesterday. The story is that he was at the bank to withdraw some cash and he slumped while in the queue and died immediately.”
The members of the LASU community blamed Ademola’s death on the crisis that resulted from the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
When contacted on Tuesday afternoon, the acting Coordinator for the Centre for Information and Public Relations, LASU, Mr Olaniyi Jeariogbe, confirmed the incident to The PUNCH. He, however, clarified that the deceased was not one of the institution’s deputy bursars, as some media outlets reported.
He said, “LASU does not have only one deputy bursar. And as I speak, all our deputy bursars and the bursar are alive, hale and hearty. I needed to clarify that.”
He continued, “The man who died was the CEO Accounts and was until his death the Financial Officer of the Faculty of Law.”
Asked about the circumstances surrounding Ademola’s death, Jeariogbe said he (Ademola) left the office for the bank to carry out “some personal transactions” at around past 11am.
“Anything can happen to anybody,” he said, adding that, “he (Ademola) left the office to go for some personal transactions at the bank between 11am and 12pm, and he had not even been away for up to 30 minutes when we heard that he had died.”
Ademola who, according to the LASU spokesperson, joined the institution as a Typist in January 1986, was born on November 13, 1959.
On October 26, 2022, the Governor of the CBN, Godwin Emefiele, announced the apex bank’s plan to redesign the N200, N500 and N1,000 notes of the naira.
The CBN boss also said the old notes of the redesigned denominations would lose their legal tender status from January 31, 2023, adding that new notes would be released on December 15, 2022.
Therefore, he advised Nigerians to deposit their old notes to their accounts through commercial banks before the January 31 deadline.
Justifying the need for a redesigned naira policy, Emefiele said 85 percent of the currency in circulation was outside the banking sector and was hoarded by Nigerians.
He added that redesigning naira notes would help curb counterfeit notes and hamper ransom payments to terrorists and kidnappers.
The January 31 deadline was later extended to February 10 after a meeting between the CBN governor and President Muhammadu Buhari.
