No panick withdrawal in Zenith Bank
By Our Reporters
There are no panick withdrawals in Zenith, Nigeria’s leading financial institution, Irohinoodua can confirm.
A report by one Kehinde Mobolaji who described himself as
Fund and Assets Management House, who claimed to be based in
Ozumba Mbadiwe,Victoria Island, in Lagos, had raised the alarm at the weekend in a report widely shared on the social media promoting Irohinoodua investigations. Our correspondents, after visits to several Zenith Bank offices across Nigeria, confirmed the claims are false.
No fewer than 20 branches of Zenith Bank visited across the country by our correspondents indicated no panick withdrawal as claimed by the said Mobalaji. There are also strong indications that the writer may have used a fake identity.
The said Mobolaji had written under the caption “Panic Withdrawal in Zenith Bank by Depositors as Central Bank of Nigeria Sounds distress alert”
He wrote “Depositors Fund in Zenith Bank maybe trapped as the bank is no more solvent. Zenith bank is facing the worst liquidity challenge since March of 2021 due to gross mismanagement of her fund. This has led to panic withdrawals by depositors in Lagos, Kano and other parts of the country”
The writer claimed that “This was declared on Monday by the Central Bank of Nigeria after Zenith Bank PLC failed a liquidity test in a distressed forensic audit by the Apex bank on credit quality. The factors responsible for this deplorable situation are capital inadequacy, non performing loans and lack of transparency in the management of depositors money.”
These claims are lies, as found out by several Irohinoodua reporters who out of public interest decided to investigate the report.
Findings indicated that across Zenith Bank offices visited, no single case of panick withdrawal was witnessed. Customers who spoke to our correspondents said they had never had any course to take panick measures since the bank was established several years ago.
One customer at Ibadan said ‘I have used Zenith bank for more than 10 years. I have no single regret”. Sulaiman Kadir who spoke to our correspondent in Kaduna at one of the bank’s branches described the report as “figments of false imaginations.”
An official of Central Bank of Nigeria, (CBN) who does not wish to be named said such reports should be ignored. He said it is certainly the handiwork of mischief makers bent on running down the prestige of the fast growing bank.
The writer claimed that “Dr. Adora Umeoji who is the Deputy Managing Director of Zenith bank has put Zenith bank under serious credit risk by the high numbers of non performing loans she accessed from the bank using fronts.” These claims are also found not only to be false but appears to be a cheap blackmail.
Zenith Bank is currently the country’s most capitalised bank with strong investors’ confidence.The bank driven by technology, dynamism and endless innovations, is currently rated as the country’s renown global force by many local and international agencies