Omamus Thomas l Monday, Oct.20, 2025
LAGOS, Nigeria – Christopher Ekene Ofielu, a 39-year-old locomotive driver, is starting a one-and-a-half-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to stealing N6,995, 944 million in ACCESS BANK system blunder.
The Lagos State High Court heard how Christopher Ekene Ofielu, a driver with the Nigerian Railway Corporation, seized a golden opportunity when an online bank suffered a huge system glitch that allowed unauthorised withdrawals across the board.
The court was told that the glitch led to a massive unauthorised withdrawal potential that could have topped N900,000,000 but it was Ofielu’s greed for a smaller sum that landed him in the dock.
The train driver created a “HabariPay Squad account” for “criminal activity” and transferred a cool N6,995,944 into his personal Access Bank account in October 2023.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) revealed they launched an investigation after a petition from the bank, HabariPay Ltd.
Prosecution witness Adams Adze told Justice Rahman Oshodi that the driver, who was a member of a criminal WhatsApp group, first made a small N500 test transaction before transferring the principal amount.
Despite his lucrative career on the rails, the court heard the 39-year-old first-time offender had made a “confession” and was “remorseful,” according to his defence counsel, Mercy Akhabue. She pleaded for leniency, stressing that Ofielu had even attempted to return the money.
However, the transfer was flagged, and Access Bank immediately placed a ‘Post No Debit’ on all of Ofielu’s accounts, including his legitimate salary account.
Justice Oshodi offered the locomotive driver an escape route, sentencing him to one year and six months in prison, but with a crucial option: a N1.5 million fine in lieu of the custodial sentence.
He was also hit with a stiff restitution order.
Justice Oshodi ordered: “You shall make restitution of N6,995,944 to be transmitted from your Access bank account… It shall be paid to HabariPay Ltd as restitution.”
In a final blow, the judge ordered that Ofielu’s biometric data be registered in the Lagos State judiciary’s offender’s database—meaning the train driver who took a chance on a bank glitch has reached the end of the line.
