The Unprotected Consumer

The Bankers’ Committee is composed as follows: The Governor of the CBN (Chairman); all the commercial banks are members; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, member; Chartered Institute of Bankers, member; Financial Institutions Training Centre, FITC, member; and Banking Supervision Department of CBN, Secretary. That the customer is left out of a body in which he is a major stakeholder bespeaks him as totally unprotected. Not even the Association of Bank Customers of Nigeria has considered fit for inclusion on the Bankers’ Committee.

By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan

Nigerian banks deserve some accolade, having come a long way from the dark ages when even the simplest bank transaction was an entire day’s job.

Today, depending on how fast you can speak the language of the Automated Teller Machine, ATM, in split seconds, you are done with your banking transaction – without interacting with any human.

On the debit side, though, banks and other institutions in Nigeria have, over the years, perfected their stealing techniques and they have discovered smoother ways of ripping off their customers.

Banks have since taken on the role of the proverbial rat that would be eating a man’s leg and be blowing cold air into it so that the man does not feel the pain until much later, when the rat must have left.

Suddenly, Nigeria has become the seller’s market – a market in which the buyer has absolutely no voice. For the average Nigerian, there is no escape route from oppression.

Any semblance of credit granted him is quickly snatched away with a corresponding debit. Two instances here will suffice:

For a long time, electricity consumers in Nigeria have cried out over the nebulous fixed charge of N750 per month clamped on them whether they use the electricity or not.

That explains why they felt relieved when the news came that the fixed charge, so called, was to be abolished, effective 1 February 2016.

On the same affective date, electricity tariff went up unceremoniously by some 50%. There is no better explanation to this than that what they gave with the right hand they snatched away with the left.

All along, the banks have been clever by half. We have cried out that they have been killing us with unnecessary charges, especially the Commission On Turnover, COT, and the associated “VAT on COT”.

These charges constituted total economic injustice, particularly against the back-drop that in the course of the month, the customer pays for virtually every service rendered to him by the bank – he pays for inter- and intra-bank transfers, stamp duty, statement of account, alert charges and much more. Recently, the banks announced that the COT and its cohort, VAT on COT, were abolished.

As we speak, the COT has been brought back under another more elegant name, Account Maintenance Charge, AMC, still accompanied by “VAT on AMC”. The only difference is that the AMC is a lot higher than the COT.

In Nigeria, nobody fights for the consumer. In other climes, the consumer has an all-round-protection. For instance, in order to safeguard consumer interest, eight consumer rights are clearly identified by the United Nations Consumer Bill of Rights:

Right to Safety – safeguarding against goods that are hazardous to life and property.

Right to Information – consumers have a right to be informed regarding the price, quality, quantity, etc., of the products they buy.

Right to Choice – consumers should be provided with a wide variety of goods to choose from.

Right to be Heard – the right of consumers to have their complaints heard

Right to Satisfaction of Basic Needs – People have access to basic essential goods and services: adequate food, clothing, shelter, education, public utilities, water, sanitation, etc.

Right to Redress – consumers have right to seek redress regarding their complaints.

Right to Consumer Education – the right of consumers to be educated about their rights.

Right to Healthy Environment – the right to live and work in a healthy environment.

Whereas elsewhere, these rights are religiously protected and enforced by appropriate government agencies, Nigeria is still faced with what has been appropriately described as rumble in the jungle. No one cares!

In the particular case of the banks, consumer right is still stoically neglected. Elsewhere, check books are given to customers as inducement but in Nigeria, customers must buy their check books at very exorbitant costs.

Again, policy issues affecting banks/customers relations are considered in the Bankers’ Committee, where the bank customers have no representation whatsoever.

The Bankers’ Committee is composed as follows: The Governor of the CBN (Chairman); all the commercial banks are members; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, member; Chartered Institute of Bankers, member; Financial Institutions Training Centre, FITC, member; and Banking Supervision Department of CBN, Secretary. That the customer is left out of a body in which he is a major stakeholder bespeaks him as totally unprotected. Not even the Association of Bank Customers of Nigeria has considered fit for inclusion on the Bankers’ Committee.

Banks today can no longer claim to be centers of security, as they did in the beginning, where people sent their money to banks for safe-keeping.

Rather, a bulk of them has become “Stealing Centers,” if we must borrow the elegant phraseology of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Besides the overt pilfering and the numerous covert charges on the customer’s account, there are countless instances of people who were robbed of their hard-earned money on their way to and from the banks, perhaps not without the active connivance of bank employees!

We are also not in a hurry to forget the aspect of corporate prostitution, which has virtually become a way of life for many of the new generation banks, so called.

Whether organized in the Red Light District or around the banking halls, prostitution by whatever name, is evil and stands condemned.

From every standpoint, the law-abiding citizen in Nigeria is on his own. This leads many to the wrong impression that crime pays.

Rather than take active interest in the welfare of the law-abiding citizen, most civil society organizations exist to protect criminal elements – from the point of arrest down to the prisons and even post-incarceration arrangements for rehabilitation!

On a moral high-ground, why should people who declare stupendous profits annually not give back to society? Instead, they keep exploiting the down-trodden!

The foregoing provides agenda for legislative actions. Any society that leaves its consumer totally unprotected has no moral justification to expect good citizenry.

After all, a nation is judged not by the way it treats its rich but by its attitude towards the poor.

Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com