Doctors are there at our bedside when we are born. We look up to them when we fall sick. They are at our death bed when we expire, thus making them an integral part of our existence. In between birth and death, sound of mind and body, we work hard to make money, most of which we entrust to our bankers. Accessing that money can be frustrating sometimes, especially now with the ongoing currency swap in Nigeria. THEWILL examines the attitude of bank workers to customers now eternally at their mercy. Michael Jimoh reports…
Shortly before last Christmas, Ademola Oloriegbe (not his real name), a teacher in one of the pricey secondary schools in GRA, Ikeja went to a branch of his bank in the same locale. It was a Friday and there weren’t too many customers in the bank’s premises. But there was the ubiquitous presence of three or so security men – all of them dressed in white with partly crumbling shoes.
As the teacher approached them, two of the security detail manning the revolving doors at the entrance snapped to attention like soldiers meeting a superior officer. “Good afternoon sir,” both of them said simultaneously pressing their index fingers to the button on the revolving doors, eager to green-light the customer into the banking hall. Ademola acknowledged both of them with a smile and then made his way inside.
Of course, the teacher understood perfectly why the security men were so deferential to him when he got there. Now leaving, he pressed a folded N500 note to the palm of one of them, saying “for both of you.” The security men bowed low from the waist, both of them telling Ademola “God bless you sir,” something they conveniently forgot to say to him when he first got there.
On February 10 last week, also a Friday, the teacher was in the same branch of the bank to make some withdrawal from his savings account. This time, there was a crowd milling about the bank premises. The green-coloured awning that used to be directly in front of the bank was gone. So were the half a dozen or so plastic chairs. Standing alone, in twos, groups of four or more, the reason for the impromptu gathering was evident on the anguished faces of those around: the deadline for swapping old naira notes for the new, redesigned ones was that very day.
Many of them had the old notes which the bank refused. Getting the new ones was even less certain because none of the customers outside was allowed into the banking hall. Luckily for Ademola, he saw one of the obsequious security men he met last December standing by the entrance to the bank – same white uniform, same crumbling shoes.
“Of course, he will recognise me,” the teacher assured himself, already envisaging some preferential treatment. After all, a favour received, so the saying goes, is a debt owed.
“But when I got close enough to him,” Ademola later told friends, “the yeye man pretended he didn’t know me. He just looked over and above my head and started whistling to himself. It broke my heart.”
The teacher’s tale is not an isolated one. It is the same story for most Nigerians now as they crowd banks, ATMs and POS avenues for unavailable cash. Nor are the bank staffers making things any better for depositors.
On the same Friday, the security man snubbed Ademola, scores of customers were treated even more shabbily in another branch of a different bank as they waited in vain to withdraw money bank staffers insisted was not there. Left unattended to in the bank premises, they chaffed at the bits, complained about everything from an uncaring Presidency to an even less caring CBN who initiated the currency swap in the first place and politicians who have made life generally unbearable for the masses.
While they were at it, they heard laughter coming from within the banking hall as if there was a party going on. It was the bank workers inside joking among themselves. Whatever it was, the waiting crowd outside could not say.
“How can they be laughing inside the hall,” an impatient customer wondered, “while we are out here waiting?”
Nigerians have been waiting, waiting with febrile anticipation as the deadline for currency swap neared mid-February spawning serpentine queues reminiscent of the fuel lines in petrol stations across the country at about the same time. The fuel queues have since gone. But the never-ending Indian files in banks have remained. Serious fights have broken out at such queues. On the lighter side, there have been solo displays of protest by men and women alike: frustrated to no end, a man went in the buff right inside one of the banking halls; a woman had a mind to do the same thing but for the dignity of the female folk, she left her bra and tights on.
Amidst all these, bank staffers remained aloof, secure in their air-conditioned offices as if the problem was not theirs, as if the trouble was with the customers who had come for money in their custody. No instance better captures this standoffish and churlish attitude more than the bank workers laughing inside one of the banks in GRA Ikeja while the apprehensive customers waited outside in vain.
Coupled with the no cash refrain (old or new notes), that lack of empathy may have sparked off the spate of demonstrations and attacks on some of the financial institutions across the country lately – in Asaba, Benin, Ibadan and Warri.
Speaking on the attacks on the local office of the CBN in Benin and some other banks, Crusoe Osagie, spokesperson for Edo State Government blamed it on hoodlums. “The hoodlums then started attacking and vandalising banks,” Osagie said. “They also blocked roads and forced businesses to close.” It may have gotten out of hand but for the prompt intervention of the police.
A similar scenario played out in Asaba, Delta state where, according to Delta Police Public Relations Officer, Bright Edafe, “unguided youths/miscreants in the name of protests also set two banks and two vehicles on fire.” Nine persons have been arrested so far in connection with the protest and assault on the banks.
The riot and demonstrations at Ibadan, Oyo state capital, was more extensive, recording two or so deaths in its wake. It began two Wednesdays ago. Edafe’s counterpart in the State Police Command, Adewale Osifeso, confirmed that “there were pockets of protest this morning by some aggrieved bank customers” at Apata, Dupe, Mokola and Ogunpa areas.
The disaffection soon spread to Lagos, the sprawling commercial nerve centre of the country. Although youths in the coastal city had been restive over the scarcity of the naira – old and new – it took until just last weekend for the demonstration proper. By the early morning of Friday February 17, hoodlums at Mile 12 down to Ojota had taken to the streets, burning tyres, attacking banks and motorists. Benjamin Hundeyin, the State Police spokesman, confirmed the attacks but told journalists the situation was under control.
Though there is a lull in the country-wide protests and acts of vandalism for now, the tension resulting from the cash crisis lingers on. Last Friday, for example, when this reporter visited two branches of two banks on Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Ikeja, the situation had not changed much. If anything, it had worsened. A security man in one said the bank was not open for business.
Customers were allowed in the second bank but they came off empty handed: no money, period! A group of five men in neon-coloured construction jackets left in a huff, just like most angry and disappointed customers have been doing these past weeks.
Part of their anger is that the CBN did disburse the new notes to most of the banks. What did they do with it? There is talk of some of the banks in question allowing privileged customers access to the new notes at the expense of the general public. To shore up their claim, they readily cite the example of Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin a Yoruba actress now at Kirikiri Correctional Centre Lagos for tampering with and spraying N100, 000 of the new notes at a party.
For every Omoseyin, most Nigerians now believe, there are hundreds of other beneficiaries who are roaming free, not nabbed by the ICPC or EFCC. In that sense, the anger of millions of customers unable to access the new notes in banks is understandable. The banks, in their reckoning, have been more selective in dispensing the new notes.
That view may be right or wrong. But what is pretty much clear, as a loony character in a short story once mused, is that whoever keeps your money virtually has your life in his hands. In the light of unfolding events, that character may not be so crazy after all, as millions of customers are now at the mercy of bankers like never before.
About the Author
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
