Naira: LASU employee trying to withdraw cash dies in bank queue

 An employee of the Lagos State University, Ojo, Mr. Johnson Ademola, died Monday afternoon in a bank queue in the institution while trying to withdraw cash.

Reports of Ademola’s demise had emerged online as some news outlets (not PUNCH) said the deceased was one of the deputy bursars of the institution.

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 member of 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 reported by some media outlets.

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.

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