Give me my gold WEMA Bank!

‘ WEMA Bank give me my gold!’

Doubts have pervaded the air for some Banks’ customers while many have lost their valuable materials others lost their cash but only few are bold to speak out. Now, this woman refused to keep her mouth shut .Taiwo Abiodun writes

Among the roles of a Bank apart from keeping and lending money is also keeping valuables in their custody like gold, diamond , certificates, Wills among others.

Today, one cannot boast of Banks of being save whether in keeping cash or otherwise. Many now believe that it is more safer to keep valuable materials and money at home instead of Bank.

Madam Enitan Olayinka Harper a long time customer with WEMA Bank is now pleading to the good spirited Nigerians to help her ask WEMA Bank to produce her jewelleries she kept in their Bank before she heads for Court and for them not to loose their reputation.

Now Madam Harper, 69, is ready to fight with her last pint of her blood in order to retrieve her valuable gold of which the WEMA Bank , Egbeda Branch claimed had been stolen by armed robbers. She has vowed to go to the Law Court to sue the Bank for defrauding her. Since the bank had refused a gentleman agreement her lawyer proposed.

According to Harper , she has been banking with WEMA Bank for years which made her to deposit her gold she allegedly valued then at 3million naira [three million naira] in their custody at their Egbeda Branch office. The items were said to have been collected with the inventory taken. A copy of the application letter itemising the jewelleries and signed by the branch secretary was also made available to The Nation. The transaction took place in 2004. She told our correspondent that she has been paying three thousand naira as interest every month.

Along the line obtained a loan of 150,000 naira [one hundred and fifty thousand naira] from the Bank in 2005 of which the agreement was to pay within one year , that is 2006. She had paid 50,000 naira from the said loan. When she requested for her gold she was told that it had been transferred to the head office.

The story later changed when sometimes on December 6, 2010 Again ,when Madam Harper arrived from London and met the Bank’s management of Egbeda Branch and demanded for her gold to sell in order to help her take care of her daughter who was hospitalised in the United Kingdom,

Her words ‘’ my late daughter was suffering from cancer and was hospitalised in the United Kingdom, I was with her for sometime in the hospital, when I discovered that I needed money to assist her I came back home, Nigeria . I went to the Bank to demand for my gold in order to sell it and go back to London to assist my ailing daughter financially and also pay up the balance of the money I borrowed from the Bank. On my arrival at the Bank k the then Manager Wasiu Adeniyi asked me to go and bring the buyer .I said it was not possible for she needed not to know the buyer , Again I demanded for only one item in order to sell and offset the 100,000naira and later I would collect my gold to sell and go to London to take care of my daughter who was being given pints of blood of about 2,500pounds weekly yet the man refused but would ask me to come back every day for one week. .Later the manager said I should give them a week and that the man who knew how to open the vault where the gold were kept had left the Bank. Later the Manager said the gold had been sent to the Head Office’’, the woman narrated .

However, since the woman was still owing the Bank, she told the Manager that she would not pay the balance unless the Bank produce her jewelleries .She said ‘’I was surprised when the Manager later told me that in the year 2010 armed robbers invaded the office and carted away my jewelleries and N25million from the strong room’’, while the woman insisted as she did earlier on in 2006 that the box of her jewellery must be produced before she could pay the amount she borrowed from the Bank, while she did not pay the balance of the 100.000naira since they failed to release the gold in their custody. She contacted her lawyer who wrote to the Management of WEMA Bank .

The lawyer was invited for settlement but nothing came out it, while the Bank is accusing the woman of her failure to pay up the balance of the loan which had gone up to 500.000naira the woman is also asking them to stop adding interest to the money unless they produce her gold.

A letter was fist sent to the WEMA office dated May 25^th 2011 while another was written again on June 21^st June , 2011 by Ogunsanya Chambers was sent to The Legal Adviser of WEMA Bank that reads ‘’ we found it difficult to accept the robbery incident because our client requested for her safe custody items in 2006 and the Branch claimed robbery attack on 6^th day of December, 2010.Over five and half years of debt accumulation through interest applications .You will agree with me that there was no correlation at all…..’

However the Head office at Marina responded to the letter on the 17^th of June 2011 and invited their client and the lawyer for a meeting which reads Your letter dated May 25, 2011 in respect to the above subject refers .Further to our efforts towards addressing the grievances of your client vis a vis the release of safe custody items allegedly lodged with the Egbeda Branch, we here by invite you for a meeting geared towards achieving this end’’, the letter was signed by one Valentine and Kunuji and Johnson Lebile from Legal services Department.

According to the lawyer Kehinde Agboola, the lawyers from the Bank started singing different songs .’’There is something hidden from the woman and I believe if the Management from the top stepped in she would have justice.How can a client keep her valuables with you and paying three thousand monthly you cannot provide them for her and you are accruing interest over the money she owed you. It is unfair ‘’ he stated

When The Nation visited Wema Bank head office at 54 Marina Lagos, the Public Relations Officer, Mr.Femi Adeniran said the bank acknowledged the receipt of application letter for the safe keeping of the jewelleries from the woman as the standard practice but there was no contract binding the two parties. He added that the purported valuables had to be valued and properly insured with the actual time limit the items were to be kept within the bank custody before the bank can be said to be liable. “By the time you do all these things, you know of course there was a contract”. He admitted to have called for a meeting of which the client’s lawyer attended but could not resolve the issue. He explained further that jewelleries and other valuables are usually kept in the head office and couldn’t have been kept in their branch the Branch claimed to have been robbed .He went further to say that the woman ought to have enough evidence by showing receipts of the transactions as hand written paper she presented with the stamp of WEMA Bank and signature evidencing the acceptance of the goods is not enough evidence to show.

The woman who to have been having transaction with the Bank said she used to deposit dollars, and pounds sterling with the Bank when she was still doing business in Dubai. She vowed to take the Bank to Court for unnecessarily increasing her interest on the remaining 100, 000 naira she was yet to balance. ’’I am heading to court, they must produce my jewelleries .They must also stop the interest accrued on the money I borrowed , let them produce my jewelleries and I will pay their balance’’ , she added’’ I cannot be cheated like that ., I have my name to protect, my husband was a Permanent Minister during the Gowon regime .I cannot be hoodwinked .Let them give me my gold.’’