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In this report, YINKA OLUKOYA, PAUL OMOROGBE, JUSTICE NWAFOR, and YOMI AYELESO report how bank staff members in Nigeria are coping with the pressure from the public due to naira scarcity.
For 28-year-old Chidinma Festus (not her real name), work-life as she knew it has changed. Just two weeks ago, Chidinma, an employee of one of the new generation banks would typically dress opulently and practically catwalk into the bank’s high-rise headquarters in Lagos’ Marina axis. She would attach her name tag to her chest on the right side, a few meters from the bank’s entrance, and hang her identity card below her breast on the other side. On her way into her office, Chidinma would smile and say hello to each person.
Things are not the same anymore. Now, Chidinma literally sneaks into her office. No more name tags, no more opulent attire that would indicate she is a banker. Her identity card now has a special place in her purse, which would be squeezed into a bigger handbag. The smiles are now scarce, and brisk footsteps have taken the place of her elegant catwalk.
“We were warned to dress down and not to hang our identity cards and name tags,” she told the Nigeria Tribune. “People are angry and would be ready to lynch you if they discovered that you are a bank staff,” she said.
She clarified that despite the precautions, they still face danger and must exercise extreme caution when moving about. “Now, once it is 5 p.m., everybody is expected to leave the office. You no longer dress impeccably and do the shakara that comes with working in a bank. Since we could be attacked at any time, we now take every precaution to hide the fact that we work in a bank,” Chidinma told the Nigerian Tribune on the telephone.
Chidinma is only one of the thousands of bank employees whose lives have recently been in danger as a result of the frustration Nigerians experience when trying to get cash from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and from bank tellers in person.
Recall that on October 26, 2022, Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), announced the apex bank’s intention to redesign and issue new N200, N500, and N1,000 notes.
Therefore, before the deadline of January 31, 2023, Nigerians who possess cash in any of these denominations must return it to their banks.
Two days before the deadline, the apex bank extended the deadline by 10 days and assured that there were enough notes to serve Nigerians. But the situation appears to contradict the apex bank’s assurances. Long queues persist, and point-of-sale (POS) operators now charge up to 20 per cent of any withdrawn amounts. At first, only the new notes were difficult to find, but now even the old notes are in short supply.
Many Nigerians have protested the ongoing shortage on the streets of Nigeria’s major cities and, on some occasions, attacked bank employees because the banks are unable to give them cash. As crowds of people waited to lynch them at the gates, bank employees were seen in some social media videos scaling fences to leave after business hours.
The Ekiti experience
Following the escalating tension over the dearth of the new naira notes in the state, many bank officials in Ekiti State now live in fear. The Nigerian Tribune observed that incidents involving assaults and harassment of commercial bank employees in other states have unnerved many of them in the state.
Under the condition of anonymity, a bank worker who works on the well-known bank road in Ado-Ekiti told the Nigerian Tribune that it has been difficult to manage the daily influx of people who want to withdraw money from the bank.
He bemoaned the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) policy of capping the amount of cash that customers could withdraw from ATMs and over-the-counter had exacerbated the issues the banks were having.
While acknowledging there have been a series of threats by customers to them, he revealed that the leadership of the financial institution had instructed them not to have any altercation with customers within and outside the banking premises.
He said, “the issue is we are going through a lot and I can tell you that this period is the most difficult for me since I joined the bank over five years ago. The harassment is just too much but we are controlling ourselves not to respond to customers in a way that will trigger attacks from them.
“Even though people are angry and frustrated, we try as much as possible to calm them, that is the reason you have not seen major problems around banks here. The fact is, we are working in fear because we don’t know what can happen the next minute especially that people are not getting their money as expected.
“Most times, we disguise ourselves to enter the bank every morning by dressing down so that our usual dress pattern of a suit will not infuriate the people. In the last two weeks, there has been a huge crowd at the bank before 7 a.m., struggling to enter the banking hall or use the ATM. If these people should descend on us, that will be too suicidal considering the huge number.”
Another bank official in one of the banks along the Ajilosun area of the state capital advocated the closing down of the branch to douse tension and help bank workers survive the trauma being faced over the scarcity of the new naira notes.
According to him, the situation is getting worse over the reduction in the number of people coming to deposit money in the bank, this he said, has resulted in the ongoing scarcity of cash in the bank.
The bank staff said, “I don’t know why we still open for customers at the moment. I would prefer we go on holiday for a week at least so as to get over this ongoing crisis, it is killing and tiring, I must tell you.
“Another thing that is making it difficult for us as a bank is that people no longer come to deposit money in their accounts. What you see people doing now is withdrawing and hoarding the money, that is the reason we don’t have enough cash for people.
“It has not been easy coping because our lives are at risk going by the way people are coming to the bank in large numbers. Even though it will be difficult to say people should not come for their hard-earned funds to use for their activities.
“I will like the state government to speak out so as to douse the tension. Government should take responsibility for protecting us by advising the people not to attack or molest us.”
Much more going on in Ogun
In Ogun State, the case is not different in any way, as bank officials were under pressure to attend to hundreds of customers that besieged their banks to exchange old notes for new naira notes.
A bank official with a new-generation bank along IBB Boulevard Road in Abeokuta said the bank adopted a bank/customer engagement strategy to address the challenge of the currency swap.
He informed them that the bank engaged its customers on a daily basis on the mode of cash payment to customers by informing them of the amount of money each customer was entitled to as a limit and the type of currency with which they would be paid.
“We are not experiencing any difficulty with our customers at GTBank. Every blessed day, we inform our customers of our mode of operation. They listened to us and supported our ideas on how to go about payment,” he added.
Another bank official at Polaris Bank, located at Oke-Ilewo, Abeokuta, said the bank had directed its staff to “dress down” against any form of attack from angry customers.
She explained that the bank decided to shut its doors against customers on Tuesday and Wednesday over insufficient funds to dispense through the automated machine teller (ATMs).
‘How my branch escaped attacked’
A banker who did not give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the press shared his experience at one of the First Bank branches in Ibadan on Friday.
He said that a combination of street sense from his childhood and diplomacy saved his branch from suffering mayhem.
According to him, he had observed certain elements hanging around the vicinity of the bank.
“I saw them sitting down, sipping alcoholic drinks in small sachets, while the atmosphere outside was getting tense and the crowds were becoming rowdy,” he said.
He then advised a senior officer to call the security personnel of the bank to identify the leader(s) of the gangsters in the area.
The banker said that the leader and his assistant were identified and called to a meeting with the bank officials, where they discussed the challenges the branch was facing due to an insufficient supply of new notes.
“The leaders were made to understand the challenges at that moment regarding the availability of new notes. We also explained to the crowd that we were there to serve them once the new notes were available.”
The banker noted that having successfully discussed one-on-one with customers and possible troublemakers in the area, the branch was left untouched. The same could not be said for other banks in the vicinity.
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