In a statement made available to Businessherald, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc has debunked the news going around that one of its branch managers was arrested in Abuja over hoarding of the new naira notes while calling for the retraction of its branch image used by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Monday.
The bank noted that though EFCC visited one of its branches in Abuja, it found no infraction against the bank.
“We refer to the attached image of a GTBank branch in Abuja used in a social media post by EFCC to narrate the arrest of a bank official in an unnamed commercial bank due to cash hoarding.
“Please note that whilst the image used is that of a GTBank branch, no staff of ours was arrested in connection with cash hoarding. EFCC officials visited our Area 3 and Area 11 branches today and no infraction was found against the Bank.
It will be recalled that the anti-fraud agency had announced on Monday that it had nabbed the operations manager of a commercial bank in Abuja for refusing to avail bank customers of the new naira notes.
Tweeting via its verified Twitter handle, EFCC Nigeria, @officialEFCC, the anti-fraud agency wrote:
“An Operations Manager of a leading Commercial bank in the Abuja Central Area was on Monday, February 6, 2023, arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, for refusing to load the Automated Teller Machines, ATMs, of the bank despite having N29million of the redesigned Naira notes in the branch’s vaults.
“Before he was whisked away for further questioning, the operatives ordered the loading of all the ATMs and the payment of the stipulated amount across the counter to the delight of the distraught customers who had spent hours in queues without getting the new notes.”
But due to the image attached to the tweet, some Nigerians have been drawing allusions that the commercial bank mentioned as GTBank which the bank has denied.