Tragedy struck at the First City Monument Bank (FCMB) as a customer, in dire need to access his account and settle urgent family matters, is no longer alive to tell the story of alleged incalculable frustration by some officials in charge of the bank’s customer services.
Reports in the social media space claimed that infuriated and left stranded by some officials’ stubborn attitude, the account holder allegedly slumped and died at the bank’s branch located along Ikwerre Road,Mile 1 in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Tuesday.
A Twitter user, Dokubo Kenneth Promise #EndSARS, who posted the sad story on his handle @dokubo_kenneth, purported that the customer lost his life due to FCMB officials’ unfriendly conduct towards him.
The reports said the man (names withheld) was desperate to withdraw money for some undisclosed family issues, but found himself in a dilemma as the bank requested that a sworn affidavit be presented by him to access his account.
According to Dokubo, with the nation’s judicial workers currently on strike and making it difficult to approach the courts for affidavits, the bank officials reportedly refused the victim’s pleas though he was at the branch with his next of kin to stand as surety.
The tweeted message said; “Man dies at @MyFCMB in Port Harcourt due to frustration and unfriendly treatment by the customer service attendants of a bank”
Dokubo quoted an eyewitness at the incident scene as saying that; “A man who hails from Asari-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State, a customer of (First City Monument Bank) FCMB died in front of the bank. — Dokubo, Kenneth Promise#EndSARS (@dokubo_kenneth) April 27, 2021
It was learnt that having waited on the queue for about five hours, the man, who was seen repeatedly pleading with some officials’ to consider his plight, suddenly started vomiting and before help could come his way, he slumped and gave up the ghost.
“He was refused access to his own money since Friday even when he came with his next of kin. He was asked to go to the court to get an affidavit knowing the court is not in session”, the eyewitness said.
Offering further insight on the unfortunate occurrence, Dokubo’s tweets also quoted the eyewitness as explaining that; “The man was vomiting and at the same time begging for him to have access to his own money yet he was denied. After he was left unattended for more than 5 hours, he died just a few minutes ago at FCMB, Education Bus Stop, Ikwerre Road, Mile 1.”
Reporting that many FCMB’s customers are being made to face untold hardship at the branch, our correspondent gathered that despite the ill-fated incident, the bank’s officials are yet to rejig their daily operations to address the existing challenges.
Some of the officials confessed that given issues around the COVID-19 protocols, the management is finding it difficult to order any major change in the current operations of the bank for easy access to transactions by their customers
However, official reaction to the unfortunate development is still being awaited from the FCMB’s Corporate Communications department as no one was ready with any response to Forefront inquiries when our correspondent visited the affected branch.
“Please, we cannot help you with any information. Only our Corporate Communications department can speak on this issue”, one bank official, who did not want her name in print, told our correspondent
