A bank official has narrated to the Lagos State High Court how N50,000 was transferred from the account of late Usifo  Ataga to Chidinma Ojukwu between June 1, to June 24, 2021.

Ms Ojukwu alongside two others are standing trial on a nine-count charge bordering on conspiracy, murder, forgery, stealing and being possession of stolen property.

All the suspects pleaded not guilty.

The account officer with Guarantee Trust Bank, Okike Obaji, said the deceased bank account was restricted after the bank learnt about Mr Ataga’s demise on June 17, 2021 through social media 

Mr Obaji presented the statement of account of the deceased between April 1, to August 31, 2021 to the court.

“For the security of the customer’s asset, the bank placed a no debit restriction on the account to ensure that further debit on the account does not occur,” he said.

This is the official second visit to the court room. In his first appearance he was summoned to present some bank documents of the late Mr Ataga. On the second visit, he was summoned as a witness.

He told the court that the document was obtained from GTB branch at Adeola Odeku, “this statement was produced by the bank, Adeola Odeku branch to be precise using the bank computer which is the.process of producing such statements for all its customers. 

Mr Obaji assured the court that the document was not in any way altered “by the way of this standard, the statement I produced was not altered anyway and was directly generated  from the customer account and printed.”

The bank official said that the account statement ended on June 30, 2021, as “there were no other transactions on the requested account”.

Mr Obaji said that on June 16, N50,000 was transferred from the deceased to Mogbo Nkechi. 

He added that the deceased bank account recorded two different debit entries of N101,200, “the first went to Paycon Nigeria limited and the 2nd went to Capricorn digital and these two transactions were card originated (ATM).”

During cross-examination, lawyer to Ms Ojukwu, Onwuka Egwu, asked the witness if the bank got any formal notice of the death of Mr Ataga.

Ms Obaji responded that the bank didn’t get any formal notice about the death of their customer adding that the line manager, Oludotun Akinde, was alerted about the transactions carried out on the account.

Mr Egwu asked, “from the 1st of June to 24th, how many transactions are in the name of Chidinma Adaora?”

“The transaction to Chidinma Adaora totalling N50k. 13th of June – N10,000, 14th of June N25,000 and another N15,000,” Mr Obaji responded.

He said the deceased also received multiple credit transfers of 20,000 and it was done using the USSD payment method on a mobile device 

Justice Yetunde Adesanya adjourned the case till May 9 to take the testimony of another bank officer from Access bank.