There is hardly any Nigerian adult who doesn’t know about what goes on in Nigerian banks in the name of “marketing.” It beats the hell out of me that for all these years, bank CEOs and branch managers in Nigeria have sent out these young women (both singe and married—it makes no difference) into what is to all intents and purposes a life of prostitution, without any repercussions.
We all know the country is a beehive of corruption, but we have a president who rose to power pledging to “kill” corruption. Maybe he doesn’t know what goes on in the banks—perhaps no branch manager or CEO has in the past been crazy enough to send a young female his way to offer sex so he could open an account.
It is well-known that bank branch managers to the full knowledge of their Lagos head offices set crazy deposit targets for their female staff. To begin with, these female staffers are hired for their beauty, elegance, poise and eloquence. Soon, they are turned into “call girls”—in the U.S. this is the kind of prostitutes who go to their “johns” (—usually called aristos, in Nigeria) from arrangements made with phone calls. So, the branch manager, supervisor or the branch head of marketing would tell the female “marketer”, “Go to Room 600 at the Sheraton and meet” so and so. “Make sure you get the account.” A euphemism for “do whatever you need to do to get the account.” This is outright pimping and prostitution. And the poor girls have to comply; they can’t afford to lose their jobs in Nigeria’s sorry economy. Before you know it, to grow in the system, to get promotions and bigger salaries, they have developed into full-blown prostitutes—lost their scruples and thrown their family values out the window. In consequence, some jealous husbands have found the cheating unbearable and resorted to assaulting and, at least in one case, to murder their wives.
On January 24, 2017 an article written by Mr. Sina Fadare, a reporter for the Lagos-based daily, THE NATION, detailed the highly reprehensible debauchery going on in Nigerian banks. The report was titled: “Female bank marketers, unholy targets and the sleaze.”
Mr. Fadare reported an interview with a disillusioned former “marketer,” named Ogechi Obiora, said to be an Economics graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. “She said a lot of her colleagues go through a lot at the hands of Casanova corporate guys and businessmen, who just want their backs on the bed before they even considered opening an account with their bank.” The reporter wrote about one successful “marketer” he gave the pseudonym Bolu Adeola. “Although no one could say it to her face, she has a reputation as a go-getter when it comes to attracting huge customers to the bank, ranging from big time senators to top oil chief executives. Tall, fair-skinned and a paragon of beauty, this reporter learnt that Adeola uses her assets maximally to her advantage, hence the bank cannot afford to lose her.”
Another “marketer” Uche Okoro acknowledged that most of the banks deliberately recruit pretty ladies to attract customers. “Seven years ago when I joined the banking industry, it was obvious that they had hidden agenda because they did not mince words. ‘Go over there and woo new customers with all that you have.’”
Then Mr. Fadare related a sad story told by one Nkiru Obiano (not real name) who had graduated with not a stellar degree class from the University of Port Harcourt. “Out of frustration, coupled with the fact that I was running out of time on my target, l decided to give in to a young guy, who introduced himself as an IT consultant to one of the oil companies. He took his time after more pressure from me to agree to move one of his accounts to our bank. Before l knew it, l was warming his bed for almost a week, with a promise that as soon as he was offshore, he would give me a cheque to open a new account with my bank…I almost fainted when l realised that he had issued me a bounced cheque. To make matters worse, l could not get him on phone and by the time l got back to his hotel, he had given a standing order that I should not be allowed in, that l was one of those disturbing him. Now to how many people would l tell my story and not look stupid?”
Former Kwara State first lady, who is also the chief executive of the LEAH Foundation, Mrs. Omolewa Ahmed, speaking to The Nation, condemned the banks in Nigeria saying they recruited these female “marketers” “to serve the selfish interest of their managers…” “These ladies are given unrealistic targets to meet. In a bid to meet the targets and particularly to keep their jobs, these ladies are consequently forced or led into prostitution with potential customers.”
Late in 2015, reports Mr. Fadare, Hon. Segun Alexander Adekola (APC, Osun), sponsored a motion titled: “Urgent Need to Curb Unwholesome Practices of Banks in Nigeria.” Said Mr. Adekola, “A critical assessment of the targets being given to these employees to meet, show them to be unrealistic, unreasonable, ordinarily unattainable and irrational.” He noted that those staffers who failed to meet the targets were summarily dismissed. Contributing to the debate on the motion, Hon. Rita Orji (PDP, Imo) said that in some cases, the female staff who failed to meet targets were sacked via text messages!
Mr. Adekola added that “these banks resort to unethical means to ensure that these targets are met by either explicitly or implicitly encouraging their staff, especially the female ones, to engage in illicit behaviour.”
Over in the Nigerian Senate in 2017, Senator Suleiman M. Nazif (APC, Bauchi) had also decried the situation, noting that female “marketers” have been turned into cheap pawns for banks anxious to increase their capital base. “Both married women and single ladies were forced into this corporate prostitution. They either complied or stood the risk of losing their jobs. These bank staff, especially the ladies, turned the whole business into a personal affair and ‘business-love’ relationship as they sleep with one client after the other. They were all given financial targets to meet individually; failure of which they lose their job. It is not a funny thing and this form of prostitution brought problems into lots of relationships and marriages.”
According to The Nation, Mr. Nazif said there was an urgent need for the Central Bank of Nigeria “to unleash an earthquake of unprecedented stringent policies on the banking industry to mandate commercial banks to stop this immoral marketing strategy and also impose fines on banks that default.”
Hon. Gbajabiamila recalled that he made an attempt to stop the practice with his Corporate Prostitution Bill presented to the Sixth Assembly, and the bill got to the stage of a public hearing, “but some bankers shot it down.”
Then House Majority Leader Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila (APC, Lagos), who is currently the Speaker, cited Section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution as protecting Nigerians from inhumane and degrading treatment, and he said that banks were robbing Nigerian females of their dignity. “Marriages have been wrecked and homes destroyed because of this practice and I am sure that none of us here will allow our daughters to be involved in this,” Mr. Gbajabiamila told The Nation. According to the newspaper, Hon. Gbajabiamila recalled that he made an attempt to stop the practice with his Corporate Prostitution Bill presented to the Sixth Assembly, and the bill got to the stage of a public hearing, “but some bankers shot it down.”
Acting as you would expect from brothel madams, some of the top female executives at the banks have backed the prostitution rackets in their banks. According to The Nation, Mr. Gbajabiamila expressed disappointment that top female bankers joined their male CEOs to raise objections to his bill. He noted that some of the international affiliates of the local Nigerian banks would not attempt to send their staff out to solicit for funds in their home countries.
Years ago, during the Obasanjo/Yar’Adua era, a Nigerian senator introduced a bill to stop the pimping of female staff by Nigerian banks—but it went nowhere fast, because the corrupt and morally bankrupt banks are too entrenched in the Nigerian corruption grid for their game to be stopped by a lone senator. The 2017 attempts at legislation also ended in failure.
There is something called Marketing in banking. Banks in civilized countries have marketing departments and staff. Apart from those doing corporate marketing—producing and placing advertisements in the media, organizing promotions—the banks in the Western world actually do have men and women they send out as legitimate marketers to market loans to companies. These are people who have received training and are technically qualified to market loans and similar credit instruments to companies and institutions. But they do not send nubile young women to sleep with men to get accounts opened for the men and the companies and organizations the men head. These banks in other nations solicit account openings by providing excellent customer service to the public and advertising their operational strengths in the news media.
Plain and simple, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari must take action. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria cannot leave the job to the semi-autonomous Central Bank, which ironically has sweeping powers over bank operations and could put a stop to all this evil by simple fiat. He shouldn’t expect the current CBN Governor Mr. Godwin Emefiele to end the malfeasance at the commercial banks. Mr. Emefiele is after all a product of the system. Before he became CBN governor he was the CEO of Zenith Bank, which like its competitors gains from the immoral earnings of women.
It is not the duty of the U.S. and the E.U. to clean up the filth in Nigerian banks, but I am here requesting them on behalf of the Nigerian people, Nigerian women, Nigerian families, to do something.
“It is no defense for a panderer that his or her target sought out a prostitution arrangement. Nor is it a defense that the panderer didn’t receive any compensation for his efforts—an exchange of money is not required for a conviction.”
Let’s start with the United States. Micah Schwartzbach writes, “Though prostitution is a crime under federal law and in all states other than Nevada, certain conduct related to it is treated far more severely than the act itself. Pimping and pandering laws are designed to curb prostitution—and to protect people who might take part in it—by punishing those who exploit, facilitate, or knowingly benefit from the sex trade.
“It is no defense for a panderer that his or her target sought out a prostitution arrangement. Nor is it a defense that the panderer didn’t receive any compensation for his efforts—an exchange of money is not required for a conviction.”
The terms “pimping” and “pandering” often overlap, and in certain states, are synonymous. Statutes may alternatively use terms such as “promoting” or “procuring” prostitution. Regardless of the technical terms employed, these laws are all directed at the same category of behavior—that is, commercial exploitation of the sex trade.
Pandering generally requires the following elements:
1) Procurement of a person for the purpose of prostitution.
This element is also satisfied by attempt. In many states, a broad range of behaviors qualifies as procurement: securing a spot in a brothel for someone, threatening a person with violence unless they become a sex worker, giving a substantial gift to entice someone to become a sex worker, and more.
2) Specific intent to promote, encourage, or otherwise facilitate prostitution.
The perpetrator must have intentionally, and with intent, recruited or coerced someone to work and earn money by providing sex, or provided services to facilitate prostitution. (In the Nigerian situation, employing a female “marketer” knowing she would be required to provide sex to the bank’s customers and potential customers would be considered a crime in America.)
Pimping, on the other hand, generally requires the following:
1) Receipt of benefits from a prostitute as a result of the prostitute’s sex services.
The receipt of money and/or benefits can be direct or indirect. For example, if a man has control over a woman, and he exerts this control so that the woman has sex with a potential business partner (in the hope that this exchange of sex will positively influence the business partner’s dealings with the man), it would likely be considered a receipt of indirect benefits. (This is exactly the crime being committed by Nigerian Bank CEOs, directors, AGMs and branch managers.)
2) Specific intent to receive money and/or benefits from a prostitute as a result of the prostitute’s sex services. (In this context, such as Nigerian banks getting new deposits and accounts because of the sex services provided by their female staff.)
I urge the U.S. Government to begin looking into the exploitation of Nigerian women by these Nigerian bank branch managers, general managers and their CEOs at headquarters. In U.S. visa application forms questions are asked about applicants’ prior involvement in genocide, drug trafficking, armed rebellion, etc. Now the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should pay more attention to the horrible type of sexual harassment and gender-based exploitation prevalent in the Nigerian workplace, most heinously in the commercial banks. If this happens, hardly any Nigerian bank CEO, general manager or branch manager would be given an American tourist or business visa.
U.S. Federal Law
Title: Inadmissible aliens. Title 8 Ch. 12 Sub Ch. II Part II Sec. 1182 of U.S. Federal Law states inter alia that “Any alien who– (i) is coming to the United States solely, principally, or incidentally to engage in prostitution, or has engaged in prostitution within 10 years of the date of application for a visa, admission, or adjustment of status…is inadmissible.” That means, denied admission into the US.
No recourse for erring banks
When the Buhari government brings down the hammer on these Nigerian banks and shuts down the sex racket, banks should not be allowed to escape the costs of salaries by firing or laying off these so-called marketers. The Nigerian Central Bank should require that the banks keep all these “marketers” in their jobs for the next four years—using them strictly as “relationship officers/managers.” They would be assigned to serve the banking needs of already existing big customers, acting basically as account officers inside the banks, with sanctions levied on anyone who compromises herself or himself with a customer.
Stopping corruption and prostitution in Nigerian banks (Part 1) >>>
♦ Hector-Roosevelt Ukegbu, an Economist, Financial Consultant and Business Analyst, is based in the United States.
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