Naira Scarcity: LASU Staff Slumps, Dies While Queuing In Bank To Withdraw N5,000

A staff of the Lagos State University (LASU) Ojo, Mr Ademola Adesola, slumped and died wh!le queuing in a bank within the school to withdraw N5,000 new notes.

The Head of the Publicity and Public Relations Unit of the university, Mr Jeariogbe Olaniyi, who confirmed the incident to the Nigerian Tribune on Tuesday, February 21, 2023, said the Grade Level 13 officer drove himself to the school in the morning.

According to Mr Olaniyi, around 11.30 am, the deceased left the office for the bank to collect money from his account. While waiting, he slumped and died in the process.

He said the deceased spent only about 30 minutes in the queue when he suddenly coll@psed and could not be revived.

Olaniyi said he was rushed to the university clinic for attention but all efforts to revive him proved abortive.

He said while Mr Adesola’s d€ath is painful, the university would want to put on record that it had more than one deputy bursar and that the deceased was not one of them.

He said Mr Adesola joined the service of the university as a typist in 1986 and rose to the Chief Executive Officer (Account) on Grade Level 13.

He said, “It is true. We were all shocked when we heard about it yesterday. The story is that he was at the bank to withdraw some cash and he slumped while in the queue and died immediately.”

The member of LASU community blamed Ademola’s death on the crisis that resulted from the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

When contacted on Tuesday afternoon, the acting Coordinator for the Centre for Information and Public Relations, LASU, Mr. Olaniyi Jeariogbe, confirmed the incident to The PUNCH. He, however, clarified that the deceased was not one of the institution’s deputy bursars as reported by some media outlets.

He said, “LASU does not have only one deputy bursar. And as I speak, all our deputy bursars and the bursar are alive, hale and hearty. I needed to clarify that.”

He continued, “The man who died was the CEO Accounts and was until his death the Financial Officer of the Faculty of Law.”

Asked about the circumstances surrounding Ademola’s death, Jeariogbe said he (Ademola) left the office for the bank to carry out “some personal transactions” at around past 11am.

“Anything can happen to anybody,” he said, adding that, “he (Ademola) left the office to go for some personal transactions at the bank between 11am and 12pm, and he had not even been away for up to 30 minutes when we heard that he had died.”