By Sonnie Ekwowusi
Last Thursday I went to one of the branches of the Access Bank to carry out a transaction on one of the accounts of our law firm. This particular account was opened about 17 years ago long before Access Bank acquired Diamond bank. And since the opening of the account, our law firm has been successfully operating without any hitches or hiccups. Almost all staffers of this particular branch of the Access bank are well known to me. In fact, I know some of them by name.
On their part, most of the bank staffers know me very well by my name too. They know I am a lawyer who comes to the bank from time to time to carry out bank transactions on our accounts. So, I have had about 17 years of smooth and cordial relationship with this bank.
But something strange happened last Thursday between me and the bank. I had arrived at the bank, as usual, to carry out the usual bank transaction. After presenting my cheque at the counter, one of the ladies at the counter held my cheque in her right hand, looked at it closely, and muttered some inaudible words. Asked what was amiss, she directed me to the inquiry desk. On getting to the desk, the lady desk officer took a studied look at the cheque, tapped her computer keyboard, looked at the screen, and said to me: “Sir, this account needs reactivation”. ”Why the reactivation?”, I queried. “Because it has been rendered dormant. It is no longer active”, she responded. Visibly angry, I retorted: “But what makes it dormant? What will I do to reactivate it”. She quickly opened the drawer by her side, pulled out a sheet of paper containing some bank requirements, threw the paper at me, and said: “Sir, these are the requirements for reopening the account. We need two references from you, your means of identification. We also need your utility bills, signatures of signatories to the account, Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering (SCUML) Certificate.
Flabbergasted beyond belief, I carefully explained to the lady that I was an old customer of the bank, and, that at the time of opening account 17 years I satisfied all bank requirements for opening a corporate account, and that the SCUML certificate wasn’t a requirement at the time I opened, and, in fact, does not apply to law firms. At this juncture, my contention attracted the attention of the bank branch manager and he left what he was doing and joined the discussion. After it dawned on me that the bank was unyielding to my conviction, I left the bank and returned to the office. After about two hours I returned to the bank with a copy of the Court of Appeal judgment in Central Bank of Nigeria V Nigeria Bar Association delivered on June 14 2017 wherein the court held, inter alia, that the Money Laundering Act 2011 (SCUML), in so far as it relates to legal practitioners, is repugnant to the Legal Practitioners Act and the Evidence Act, and, therefore not applicable to law firms.
As soon as I entered the bank hall I flashed the copy of the judgment before the lady. I saw her countenance change a little bit. But that was the only change I could see in her. After a moment of silence, she stood up, looked me in the eyes, and returned her previous verdict- to the effect that I must produce a SCUML certificate failure for which our law firm account will remain closed. Considering that the bank had neither respect for the rule of law nor respect for their long-time customer, I told the bank that I was applying to permanently close the account. Upon the grant of my application, I quickly put pen to paper and instantly closed the account. Before leaving the bank, I turned and told the bank staffers who cared to listen to me that disobedience to the court order and contemptuous treatment of customers were not only capable of damaging the image of the bank but could land the bank in big trouble someday.
Most Nigerian banks have a reputation for acting contrary to the law and interests of their customers. Truth to tell, at times I am tempted to buy the argument that most Nigerian banks are just dysfunctional. To begin with, the apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is working against the interest of many Nigerians respectfully Nigerian exporters and importers. The current CBN is a pawn in the chess of the Buhari government. The governing board of the CBN is not insulated from partisan politicking. In fact, Emefiele’s CBN functions as if it is an appendage to the Presidency. President Buhari habitually directly issues instructions to the CBN Governor and the latter obeys without qualms. More than 2,000 manufacturing companies and would-be investors including Dunlop Plc have been forced to flee Nigeria owing to the CBN’s strangulating forex policy and monetary policies.
The CBN obstructs food importation into the country even though it cannot tackle food scarcity in the country. For example, recently the 10 products selected by the CBN for special intervention to reduce food importation in the country fell short of the target contained in the bank’s five-year policy plan. Whereas the CBN easily denies manufacturing companies the foreign exchange to import raw materials and other essential goods into Nigeria, it prints trillion upon trillions of the Naira currency and freely doles them out to President Buhari and others for the satisfaction of their personal needs. Small wonder Governor Emefiele nurses the ambition of becoming the President of Nigeria. As far as he is concerned, he is in the good books of President Buhari’s and therefore he is qualified to be the President of Nigeria
Under the pretext of charging their customers bank charges such as value-added tax, or service charges or alert charges, or charge on transfer (COT), new cheque book charges, overdraft charges, returned cheque charges, or any other bogus charges, most commercial banks in Nigeria are quietly “stealing” depositors’ funds without the knowledge of the depositors. The annoying aspect is that these unsolicited prohibitive charges are arbitrarily and recklessly imposed on customers without prior consent of the customers. Also, the charges are discriminatorily imposed. For instance, a bank may exempt some wealthy customers with fat bank accounts from paying COT charges and turn around to impose heavy COT on other customers of the bank with lean bank accounts. Besides, some bank statements are replete with calculation inaccuracies and errors. And considering many bank customers do not cross-check their bank statements or statements of account, such inaccuracies and errors are undetected. Fund transfers from abroad are also heavily charged. The last time I transferred some funds abroad my bank charged me an incredible percentage as transfer charges despite the fact that I maintained a domiciliary account with the bank. Not to mention the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) and the various e-payment bloated charges. Bank customers in Nigeria groan under the yoke of oppressive ATM charges.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that the CBN and many commercial banks in Nigeria are in dire need of reinvention to guarantee their efficiency and ethical practices, and professionalism. It beats the imagination that banks which ought to render customers the best bank services turn around to maltreat their customers as well as impose prohibitive bank charges on them. The tragedy is that Emefiele’s CBN which ought to exercise a supervisory role over the commercial banks is in dire need of supervision at the moment. For sure, the accumulated rot at the CBN cannot be cleansed in one fell swoop: it requires constant cleansing possibly in the coming years until the whole rot is cleansed away. Certainly, we cannot continue to live in a country with dysfunctional CBN and commercial banks.
That said, bank customers should learn to cross-check their statements of account to ascertain that they are not fraught with errors. We need an enlightened bank citizenry that is keen on protecting their rights. In keeping with bank-customer good relationships, banks should treat their customers with respect, refinement, and delicacy. According to the popular saying, customers are always right. A customer is never wrong. Therefore requesting that a bank customer should first and foremost procure a SCUML certificate before his account is reopened is punitive and disrespectful. I thought banks were supposed to make opening of bank accounts easier for their customers in order to encourage them to continue to patronize the banks. Definitely, by making the procurement of a SCUML certificate mandatory many customers would be forced to shut down their bank accounts as I recently did.
Therefore in order to enhance smooth bank-customer relationship, the CBN should scrap the SCUML certificate requirement. First, getting a SCUML certificate from the EFCC is tedious. The process takes almost a month. So, needless to place this unnecessary SCUML burden on the shoulders of a bank customer who is simply patronizing the bank. If the EFCC and our security operatives are seriously out to track down and arrest money launderers or those involved in financial crimes, they know the best way of going about it. Certainly harassing an innocent bank customer over the non-possession of a SCUML certificate is improper. Therefore the CBN, as I earlier said, should reinvent itself. First and foremost, it should regain its independence. It should serve the interest of all Nigerians not only the interest of the Presidency. Above all, it should perform its duties responsibly. In the coming months, we look forward to seeing a revamped CBN capable of fulfilling its statutory duties diligently and responsibly no matter whose ox is gored.
On their part, commercial banks should treat their customers with due respect and regard.
