The unexpected happened at Oronna Street, Off Puposola Street, Abule Egba, Lagos Wednesday morning when a 60-year-old man, identified as Gbadebo Elegbede beat his wife, Maria Elegbede, to death over missing N500.

The scuffle between the couple started around 8am on Monday when the accused, Gbadebo, purportedly discovered that his N500 was missing and immediately accused the deceased’s son of being the culprit.

The deceased then defended her son saying he could not have stolen the money. This turned into a scuffle and the man was said to have hit the woman with an object and she fell down and died.

When their 17-year-old son, identified as Johnson, who the father accused of stealing the N500 came in, he rushed towards her but found that she was already dead.

The husband refused anyone access to her body even when relatives of the deceased rushed down to the house.

Some of the relatives who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity said they were afraid and confused as to what to do since they are not living in Lagos.

One of them said: “Since he did not allow us see the corpse, we are now back in Ogun State. We are confused as to what to do whether to report the matter to the police in Ogun State or in Lagos State. The man has been threatening everybody saying he is a cult member and that no one can touch him.

In a related development, Dr. Uju Ogbunka, President of Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN), has urged bank customers not to depend on Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) for payment in emergency situation. Ogbunka said in an interview with our Correspondent on Wednesday in Lagos that such act should be discouraged because of dispense error associated with ATMs.

He was reacting to a barrage of complaints associated with dispense error by ATMs in emergency situation.

It was gathered that a dispense error happens when ATMs debit bank customers’ accounts without physically paying them.

The error, most times, is attributed to cash jam in the machines and link problem between bank servers and their service providers among others.

Ogbunka said that BCAN helps bank operators and regulator to collaborate with customers in settling disputes that arise in the course of banking transactions.

He said that an ATM was prone to such error being a mechanical device, noting that it could be caused by irregular power supply.

Ogbunka urged customers to embrace other alternative channels of payment such as Point of Sale terminals (PoS), online banking and agent banking.

Ogbunka, who is also the Registrar, Chartered Institute of Bankers (CIBN), added that customers’ acceptance of other channels of payment would boost the financial inclusion programme.

He also said that financial inclusion was needed for the benefit of the citizenry and the growth of the economy.

Mr Boniface Okezie, Chairman, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), said that CBN and bank managing directors had to collaborate to check dispense error by ATMs.

Okezie said the problem could be rectified by identifying what exactly caused the error.

According to him, banks are not the manufacturers of the ATMs.

The banks were forced to install the machines without doing a proper home work.

“It was a case of fire-brigade approach,” Okezie added.

A survey conducted by our correspondent showed that the dispense error usually occur when a customer uses an ATM where his account is not domiciled.

Some banks’ spokesmen, who preferred anonymity, said that ATMs were prone to such development because of their mechanical nature.