Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria – Purge In The Banks

Source: Daily Champion, 4 januray, 2010

Nigeria Labour

The on-going mass sack of bank workers across the country, which is allegedly targetted at off-loading about 21,000 people into the labour market by the end of the first quarter of this year is condemnable and must be stopped. The ill-wind, blowing across different banks’ branches and cadres of staff, is believed to have swept away about 4,000 workers so far, in spite of a Federal Government directive that the purge be halted.

Lists are still allegedly being compiled by some other banks of those likely to be sacked in the days ahead.
The Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is said to have directed the banks to sack the staff, as well as slash salaries of workers and close down unprofitable branches as a strategy to emerge from the crisis in which some of them are still wallowing, despite the apex bank’s injection of about N620 billion to bail out nine of the endangered ones.

This move can only have the effect of unnecessarily swelling the unemployment market, increasing the rate of crime, needlessly convulsing the banking system and causing further loss of confidence in the banking sector. With all these self-evident consequences, it is clear enough that the policies were ill-conceived and are insensitively being implemented.

Otherwise why would the leadership of the CBN and the affected banks think up a scheme that would shake the banking system and the economy generally to its very foundation so soon after the tsunami that recently swept the managements and Boards of some banks away?

Why would they want to create a situation that would confirm the impression in the minds of depositors, shareholders and prospective investors that there is distress in the banking sector?

And though there is no time that is good enough to sweep away so many people from their jobs, we insist that it was insensitive to contrive to sack so many people during the Christmas and New Year season, a season of joy and celebration.

Nigeria has been held hostage by all manner of strikes. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) only recently called off a protracted action that ground tertiary institutions in the country to a halt; judiciary workers, health workers, tanker drivers, secondary school teachers etc have all, at one time or the other in recent times, also held the country by the jugular, courtesy of their strikes.

Should the two workers’ unions in the banking sector -Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) and the National Union of Banks, Insurance and other Financial Institutions’ Employees (NUBIFIE) carry out their threat to shut down the business offices of the banks involved in what they consider unlawful and unprocedural mass retrenchment of workers, a critical sector in the nation’s economy would, again, be crippled.

While we cannot oppose any attempts at re-engineering the system, we reject a situation whereby workers are being made the scapegoats, especially when this is not on account of indiscipline or inefficiency but on account of their perceived loyalty to the past leaderships of the banks.

Any form of arbitrariness or victimisation must be resisted, after all, the August 29, 2009 shake-up in the banks was mostly the consequence of non-application of good corporate governance principles in the management of the affected banks and outright fraudulent insider loans taken by directors to fund their private businesses.

If the CBN and the affected bank managements cannot establish a relationship between the workers that are being sacked and the about N700 billion looted from the banks, it would amount to injustice to sacrifice these workers for the sins of the ousted leaderships of the banks.

Moreover, before the sack of the boards and managements of these banks, the CBN had been monitoring them, apparently badly. So far, however, we have not heard of any mass sack of the CBN monitors whose inefficiency led to the concealment of the monumental fraud. Why should the bank workers be the sacrificial lambs?

The mass sack of banks’ workers appears to be the easiest way out for the leaders of the banks and the CBN but we counsel that they must not adopt that option because the consequences could be much more than the economy and the polity generally can bear. They should return to the drawing board and evolve more creative ways of returning the banks to profitability without sacrificing innocent and hard working fellow Nigerians.

We appreciate the efforts being made by officials of the Federal Government to halt and reverse this ill-wind. The CBN and the leaderships of the banks must heed their wise counsel and retrace their steps in the overall interest of the country.

And because there seems to be some undeclared motives behind the actions of the CBN and the leadership of the banks, we suggest that the relevant committees of the National Assembly should conduct a public hearing where all stakeholders would come to lay the cards on the table. We believe that full disclosure of the state of the banks and the cause of the challenges they are facing would go a long way towards identifying the way forward for the sector, which, we are sure, cannot be the mass sack of their staff.

Nigerian Bank Nigeria CBN Central Bank Of Nigeria