CBN Freezes 38 Companies’ Accounts For Alleged Fraud And Financial Sabotage

Ebun Olowu

The Central Bank of Nigeria has directed Deposit Money Banks to freeze the bank accounts of 38 companies operating in the country.

The development was confirmed in a circular dated September 4, 2020, signed by the CBN’s Director of Banking Supervision, Bello Hassan.

The apex bank in the circular directed commercial banks to place the accounts of the 38 companies on “Post No Debit”order.

Post No Debit is a situation where all transactions are prevented or money are prevented from going out of the bank account.

Any transaction related such as ATM card, cheques, credit card transactions and so on are not allowed.

This happens for some reasons such as fraud suspicions in most cases or on the side of the financial institution an error in terms of payment.

When this happens investigations may need to be conducted and necessary actions would be considered. If the financial institution is satisfied then the block will be removed.

The CBN circular reads, “You are hereby required to place the under listed accounts on Post-No-Debit with immediate effect and revert with the account names, numbers, currencies and balances of all accounts placed on PND.

“Note that only the listed entities should be placed on PND, all related accounts are excluded. Your response should be forwarded to the underlisted email addresses [email protected] or [email protected].’’

One of the companies listed by CBN is Premier Lotto owned by Adebutu Kessington, Nigerian billionaire known as Baba Ijebu.

There had been reports that one of Adebutu’s children and other management officials of Premier Lotto were in January detained at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission office in Lagos.

According to officials of the commission, the investigation was as a result of a petition submitted by Western Lotto, another betting company run by late Buruji Kashamu.

The EFCC was said to have identified N5bn revenue that should have been remitted to the Federal Government which was allegedly kept aside by the company.