Posted by By Ayodele Aminu and Kunle Aderinokun in Abuja on
If Mr. Dipo Oniwide, Assistant General Manager at Zenith Bank Plc, who secured a US visa lottery in 2001 had relocated with his family, perhaps he and his wife, Nkiru would not have been among the victims of last Saturday's Bellview Airline crash.
If Mr. Dipo Oniwide, Assistant General Manager at Zenith Bank Plc, who secured a US visa lottery in 2001 had relocated with his family, perhaps he and his wife, Nkiru would not have been among the victims of last Saturday's Bellview Airline crash.
And perhaps if his wife had not sought transfer from Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Lagos to Abuja, may be she would also have been alive today. The Oniwides were said to have started their relationship at Pricewaterhouse Coopers where Dipo who graduated with an upper class in accounting at University of Port Harcourt worked before moving to Zenith Bank.
Dipo who was Senior Manager at the Financial Planning and Control Unit of Zenith Bank before he was transferred to Abuja where he was promoted AGM about two years ago was said to have just relocated his family to Abuja.
Dipo's colleagues especially those that had had close relationship with him but pleaded not to be quoted, described him as a 'nice, hard-working and brilliant young man."
Said one of his close friends at Zenith Bank : 'When I heard he was involved in that crash yesterday I wept and my eyes bled. He is one of those highly talented staff. He had good relationship with anybody that came his way and Zenith Bank does not joke with him."
Meanwhile, the loss of the Oniwides has thrown the Abuja branches of Zenith Bank into a deep sorrow as staff wore mournful looks yesterday.
Most of the branches of Zenith Bank were said to have observed skeletal operations with most of its marketers staying indoors to pay their last respect to the late Oniwides.
Operations staff were however, attending to customers who came in trickles to make cash withdrawals.
One of the staff who spoke with THISDAY on condition of anonymity, said the bank would have preferred not to attend to customers but that it would send wrong signals to customers.