A Calabar Microfinance Bank located on Bassey Duke Street was, yesterday afternoon, raided by hoodlums, who carted away large sums of money. The hoodlums numbering five, according to a staff of the bank, parked their car outside the gates of the bank at about 3p.m. and forced the security man on duty and the bank manager, identified as Dennis, into the banking hall before carrying out their operation. He said:
“They asked everyone, including the cashiers and customers, to lie down facing the floor before they broke into the bank vaults and carted away all the money they found there”. He said the money that was on the counter and on customers were also carted away by the hoodlums before zooming off in their car. “They hit the cashier on the head with the butt of their gun, took away all the money with him, loaded it into their bag and went away,” he added. He said he could not ascertain the amount of money stolen by the robbers since they had not balanced their books for the day. The bank is owned by a Calabar Pastor, Bishop Josef Bassey, Mr Nkeruwem, former Manager of Cross-Lines and P. K. Ogar. Ms Irene Ugbo, the Cross River Police Public Relations Officer, said she was yet to be briefed on the incident at the time of filing this report. “We have not received any distress call from there but I heard policemen on patrol actually went there but did not see anybody.”