Column
–
| By Paul Okolo |
ON March 1, a civil society group known as Consumer Advocacy Foundation of Nigeria led a protest against what it described as excessive charges, illegal fees and unfair contracts that Nigerian banks impose on their customers. Led by a resolute lady called Sola Salako, the group, also known by its acronym CAFON, carried out a “No Banking Day” campaign, urging customers to boycott banking activities for the day to protest against arbitrary charges on customers.
Among other things, the group’s statement said: “Banks debit our accounts at will for charges we never agreed to or were not aware of; they charge us for every little service; we pay for getting our statements; introduction letters; and now, some banks are charging N200 for the use of deposit and transfer forms! That’s unacceptable.”
Media reports about the protest gave the impression that it was a flop. The reason was because it was business as usual in most banking halls across the country in spite of the campaign. While the impact of the action might not have been significant in terms of compliance, the Director General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Muda Yusuf, said “the message from the customers to the banks has been passed.’’ I, too, join him in commending CAFON for a great initiative. No doubt the campaign could have been better organized. People should have been adequately mobilized across the country. In my view, they should have engaged the banks in a prolonged debate to get them to reverse some of the unpopular charges failing which the need for the action would have become inevitable.
That the boycott took place at all and got noticed was a big feat. Even for weightier causes touching on the very existence of citizen and country, some people will still not participate in such an action. CAFON also deserves kudos for opting for persuasion based on facts and figures to sway the people to their side instead of using unwholesome methods capable of hurting the economy. And don’t forget that it’s not easy for a poorly funded group like CAFON to take on cash-rich Nigerian banks in a campaign and expect outright victory. The activists might have failed to persuade most people to support their cause; they certainly won in the court of public opinion.
Even many of those who defied the boycott confessed they did so not because they thought the campaigners didn’t have a point. They ignored the call because, firstly, the date chosen was the most inappropriate. It’s the first working day of the week which is usually a peak banking period for lots of people. Secondly, many were unaware of the protest on the chosen day owing to inadequate publicity. More effort should be directed in future to get maximum support to a worthy cause such as this.
On a positive note, I think banks will think twice in future before taking their customers for granted. While the bank customer is usually treated as king elsewhere, here, they are seen as a nuisance at best and at worst as a daft and powerlessperson to be abused at will. Recently, I heard of someone who opened a savings account with 2,000 naira to earn interest. At the end of the month his balance was 1,988 naira. Reason? He was sent three SMS alerts. The first was to give him the account number. The second said he had earned 53 kobo as interest, and the third announced his latest balance of 2,000.53 naira. You believe our friend’s money increased by 53 kobo, right? Wrong. He got another alert of a 12 naira debit being the cost of the previous three alerts. So for each alert, he was charged four naira. Yet, everybody knows that bulk SMS costs one naira each. This is an unintelligent way of making money.
Sadly, the regulators that ought to be in the customers’ corner chose to chide CAFON instead of commend it. They told us that they’d made banks return more than six billion naira to customers who complained. The Central Bank of Nigeria should be doing more. Six billion naira is a slap on the wrist for institutions that are daily pilfering much more from depositors. Part of its job is to protect us from illegal practices. Otherwise, more Nigerians may lose faith in the system and take their money to hide in septic tanks and mattresses. Perhaps that’s why in a population of 170 million plus, there are just some 40 million bank account holders compared with over 151 million mobile phone users.
— Mar 21, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags:
