- Workers blame regulators, banks for stress-related complications
- Demand comprehensive report on mortality rate from banks, retired bankers tell CBN, NDIC
No fewaer than 45 bankers working for the top five banks, across all the branches in the country, might have died in the last three months, investigations by The Point have revealed. This came as some retired bankers in Nigeria are calling on the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation to urgently come to the rescue of Nigerian bank workers who are dying silently from stress-related complications.
In an exclusive chat with our correspondent at the weekend, a retired banker who worked with one of the new generation banks, Mr. Julius Adedoyin, said, “I have counted about 45 persons, who died in the top five banks in the last three months due to stress- related issues.”
Ordinarily, a lot of them would have just thrown in the towel and saved their lives but because there are no other sources of income, many die in the process of working hard for their money.. This is pathetic!”
Adedoyin said many bankers in the country, especially those in Lagos and other big cities, were dying of high blood pressure, occasioned by stress and the threat of sack at the slightest provocation, coupled with their inability to meet targets that were often too high and unrealistic.
Also confirming the high mortality rate among bankers in the country, another retired banker, Chief Macbeth Udomah, said, “Many bankers are working under duress because of the bad economy.”
Udomah told our correspondent that “ordinarily, a lot of them would have just thrown in the towel and saved their lives but because there are no other sources of income, many die in the process of working hard for their money.” “This is pathetic,” he added.
He said, “Let’s take those who work on the Automated Teller Machine for instance; the staff that work from Monday to Friday are the same staff that also work on Saturday and Sunday just to keep the 24-hour operation going seamlessly. So, it is like a seven-day work. When will they have the time to rest?”
A former banker turned lawyer, Mrs. Margaret Ekine, said in spite of all the pressure the bankers were being made to pass through and the humiliation they were subjected to in the course of their work, many of them still had little or nothing significant to show for their efforts.
“In fact, the workers are not allowed to belong to labour unions – a gross violation of the International Labour Organisation treaty, which Nigeria is a signatory to,” she lamented.
Further lamenting the working conditions of the bankers, Adedoyin explained that many of these bankers do not live to see retirement age.
“Although, life is not all rosy at retirement, but I thank God that I am alive. Retirement also comes with its challenges, the constant monthly salaries and allowances are no longer there, the luxury of life, the youthful age and all that,” he said.
The former banker lamented that the problem with most bankers was that they failed to plan for old age.
“They believe that the money will always be there. But generally speaking, some people are well prepared, while others are caught unawares. There are some who ventured into agriculture while others who were professionals, like lawyers, simply went back to their professions,” he explained.
He, however, called on the regulators to look inward and monitor operations of the various banks, saying the management of the banks had left decision making to the younger managers who, according to him, are mostly inexperienced and operated without laid-down rules.
Other retired bankers, who spoke with our correspondent in separate interviews, said the CBN and the NDIC should compel bank directors and management of the various banks to do a comprehensive yearly report on mortality rates in the banks.
Ordeal of a retired banker
A 55-year-old former banker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, while narrating how miserable life had been for her since she left the banking industry, said, “Depression almost killed me. At a point, I was contemplating suicide. I would lock myself in the shop for days without food; I would go out to buy local dry gin popularly known as (Ogogoro) and drink myself to stupor. I would cry all night and day while remembering my days in the bank where I was just promoted to management staff before I was frustrated out.”
Benjamin was a senior manager in one of the top five banks in Nigeria and had everything going for her – a sleek Murano SUV, an array of top clients, a stable relationship and a huge future ahead of her – it was a life many of her friends wished for.
Her problems, however, started when she was sacked from the bank. Her landlord gave her a quit notice as she could no longer afford her rent and she eventually sold-off all her property, including her car to safeguard her boutique, which eventually became her residence.
After several months of being unable to pay for the shop, she was ejected and found solace in a room apartment where she resides presently.
“After going through all these, I came to realise that life is full of vanity. What I went through is not what I would even wish my enemy. But I thank God for life. Everything still appears like a dream to me,” she said with a trembling voice as she nodded her head dejectedly at intervals like a woman who had just lost a long-awaited pregnancy.
Narrating her ordeal further, she said, “Within just six months, everything was gone, my job, contacts and, painful of all, my fiancé. It was as if I was cursed by a witch.
“As for the regulators, mine is an appeal, that they should delve into the activities of the banks and sanitise the system. Some banks are just into unnecessary competition, especially the first generation banks such as First Bank, Union Bank and others. They want to copy what the new generation banks are doing. But the question is, should the older ones copy the younger ones?”
Regulators to be blamed
Udomah, who said the stress that bankers were going through was enormous, also blamed the CBN and the NDIC for not checkmating “what goes on in the financial institutions, especially in the new generation banks.”
“Studies have shown that two-third of retirees did not seek financial advice while in service. Seventy-five per cent of retired people were not also satisfied with their retired status,” he said.
