Guaranty Trust Bank Limited has reacted to a report that it gave N500 million new notes to one of the candidates for the presidential election conducted on February 25, 2023 in Nigeria by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
A Twitter user, @ifygold21, levelled the allegation against the Bank in a tweet released over the weekend.
The INEC has since declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as the winner of the election.
Reacting to the allegation by @ifygold21 on Wednesday, GTB said in a statement that the claim was completely false and designed to bring its image and those of its officers to disrepute.
It said: “The attention of Guaranty Trust Bank Limited has been drawn to a spurious post on Twitter by @ifygold21 alleging that the Bank gave the new Naira notes in the total sum of N500 million to one of the leading presidential candidates in the ongoing General Elections, on the eve of the elections and at the order of a high-ranking government official.
“The Bank wishes to refute this claim in its entirety and state categorically that it is completely false and it’s designed to bring the image of the Bank and its officers to disrepute.
“The fact that the post refers to Segun Agbaje as Managing Director of the Bank further exposes the sponsors of the content as uninformed and malicious.
“Accordingly, we would like to clarify that Miriam Olusanya is the Managing Director of the Bank and has been at the helm of affairs of the Bank in that capacity since her appointment in Aug. 2021.
“Our preliminary findings show that the post was made using a faceless bot account, evidently operated by unscrupulous persons intent on propagating falsehood and inciting well-meaning Nigerians to their malicious ends.
“This is clearly unwarranted and poses a serious threat to our continuing operations, with incalculable risks to lives and property.”
The bank said that it had taken the post seriously and escalated it to all concerned parties, including Twitter, for the identification of the owner of the fake account and consequent legal action.
The bank noted that its Nigerian operations supported a diverse customer base with varied business interests in communities across the country and as such, remained available to everyone.
The bank urged its customers and the banking public to kindly disregard this unsubstantiated claim in its entirety.
“Guaranty Trust Bank hereby restates its commitment to being a responsible, non-partisan corporate citizen with strict adherence to the highest standards of global best practice as well as sound corporate governance in all aspects of our business operations,” it said.
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