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Femi Otedola Battles Jim Ovia

By Glam & Essence

 

Billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola is presently in a feud with Zenith Bank’s chairman, Jim Ovia, over an alleged multibillion naira fraud on his account.
According to reports by TheCable, Otedola had accused Zenith Bank of unlawfully using the account of his company, Seaforce Shipping Limited, to trade in 2011, without his knowledge or consent.
Despite having not been operated since 2010, Seaforce Shipping’s account continued to be used for trading,completely unknown to Otedola, according to his petition now being investigated by the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) of the police.
Although Otedola said Seaforce never applied for nor took a loan from Zenith Bank,yet,unauthorised trading running into billions of naira continued on the account.
When asked to provide documentation,including offer letters to support the grant of the said loans,Zenith Bank reportedly failed to do so.
Otedola discovered the suspicious activities only recently,13 years after the transactions,following a tipoff by a whistle-blower in Zenith Bank.
When Otedola confronted Zenith Bank’s officials, they apologised.
Otedola produced a letter written on March 19, 2018, by Zenith Bank to Shofolawe-Bakare & Co, Seaforce’s auditors, stating a debt of only N2,278,420 on the same account, as against the N5 billion recorded in the bank statement that Otedola received.
However,on the day the letter was written, the bank statement showed a debt of N2.9 billion,compared to the N2 million stated in the letter signed by Taofik Bashir (internal audit control) and Edwin Kind Olie (group head, telecom).
Transactions of over N16 billion were recorded against Seaforce’s account from 2011 to 2024.
Otedola queried who made the payments to reduce the purported debt from N16,927,628,581.84 to N11,010,924,522.71,since he was not in the know of the deal.
However,moves are said to now have been to resolve the matters amicably by both parties.

Source: The Cable

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