Chief Conduct and Compliance Officer, Access Bank, Solomon Abiakalam,  said this at a news conference on the bank’s “Spot-The-Scam” campaign in Lagos.

Abiakalam said  the initiative targets students aged 12 to 16, with a goal of reaching 30,000 young people in Lagos State.

He said the programme was designed to help young people identify scams and avoid becoming victims or unwitting perpetrators of financial crimes.

He recalled that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested about 792 young people during a raid in Victoria Island, Lagos, on Dec. 10, 2024.

He said the incident highlighted the need to address financial crimes through early education, alongside regulatory and banking controls.

He said the bank had strengthened internal controls but decided to “go upstream” by educating potential victims and perpetrators.

Abiakalam also called for scam awareness and prevention to be incorporated into school curricula, saying banks, schools, parents, government agencies and telecommunications companies must collaborate to tackle financial crimes.

He said the bank regularly trained and assessed its staff on financial crime prevention and operated an “always-on” fraud awareness campaign.

He advised customers to pause and verify suspicious messages or requests, especially those creating urgency, fear, threats or undue excitement.

The Head, SME Banking, Access Bank, Abiodun Olubitan, urged parents to create an environment where children could report suspicious online experiences without fear of punishment or shame.

The Acting Group Head, Marketing and Retail Analytics, Access Bank, Oge Kasie-Nwachukwu,  said early financial education would help children recognise scams involving fake rewards, games, celebrity profiles and other online content.

She said the programme would initially focus on students but would subsequently expand to children, parents and teachers.

The representative of the Lagos State Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, urged students to report suspicious activities to teachers and guidance counsellors.

The Head, Regulatory and Financial Crime Compliance, Access Bank, Inyang Etim, urged adults to adopt a non-judgmental approach toward young people already involved in financial crimes.

Etim said creating safety bespaces for young people to speak openly could encourage them to seek help and provide information that could expose criminal networks.

She also urged parents to instil ethical values in children, noting that incentives alone could not replace proper moral upbringing.

Speaking on the development, the Deputy President of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Aliyu Ore, said the distribution of the stations across the states would help bring down transport fares.

He said, “It’s a good one. And if everything goes well, it’s automatically going to come down. Because by virtue of this, at least each state will get like 20. While some commercial states will get more than that.

“But at least 20 in every state, and the transportation cost in the area will come down. If everything goes the way it’s supposed to go. One thing, you may get a filling station, and there is no gas. So, if all 500 filling stations are available and function well, I assure you that the price of transportation will come down. I’m very sure, and it’s a good one.”

Also speaking, the Secretary-General of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria, Ibrahim Yusuf, described the initiative as a welcome development, saying it would reduce hardship and inflation.

Yusuf said, “We have a serious problem in the petrol and transport fields because, one, it will question the problem, and it will reduce the hardship and inflation drastically. It’s a welcome idea. You know, it has to start from somewhere. Already, the willingness and the intentions are there.

“And we are assured that, yes, these things are coming. And we believe it will come to reality. And as such, the citizens of Nigeria will enjoy the gesture of the president. By the time it’s shared with the end users, impact will be felt. I know it will reduce poverty; the drastic cost of transportation and inflation will be reduced.

“A bag of rice will be reduced in price. So that is the effect of the cost of transportation that Tinubu has done. That is what you should be expecting. The moment you can get relief from one side, it will go around.”

The operators stressed that the expected impact of the CNG stations would depend on their availability and functionality, particularly ensuring that motorists can access gas whenever they need it.

In August 2026, President Bola Tinubu directed the rollout of another 500 CNG refuelling stations nationwide, bringing the Federal Government’s planned network to 1,000 stations. The directive followed a meeting with state governors on measures to reduce transportation costs.