Opinion: What to do when your bank network is ‘down’

by Isa Sanusi

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The prayer of every bank customer is, may i not be caught up in the ‘network is down’ scenario. For so many this prayer is hardly answered.

The young lady wears, on top of her scalp, a mass of hair. Her hair is shining and every strand of it sticks out as if to show how expensive it might be. Her face is a display of thick layers of make up, telling the importance she attached to looking beautiful.

It is mid day. The air is hot. The sun is bright and not nice. As she make her way into the crowded banking hall in what is called Abuja’s business district, the air conditioner in the banking hall wiped the sweat that seems intent on ruining her make up.

I was behind her on the queue and the withdrawal slip in her hand was blank. She was looking around for someone to ask, ‘please can you help me with your biro?.’ She left the queue and returned after about ten minutes. I’m in front of you, she said. She made her way in front of me without getting the argument she wanted. Though this queue has only about seven people, I later understand the lady booked a position on the queue first, then went to check the balance of her account, perhaps to confirm, whether the transfer she is expecting has happened. She withdrew about four thousand Naira and squeezed all of it into a shabby brown and fake Louis Vuitton branded purse. She hastened exit from the bank. She was impatient with the revolving security door which enforces the culture of patience and waiting.

Another young lady was lingering longer than usual at counter, in the presence of the bank cashier, which is the destination all of us in the banking hall are anxious to reach. We are all customers. The young bank cashier, is in three piece suit. His hair cut is fresh. The young bank cashier was telling her in the manner of a public announcement that, her identity card cannot support cashing the light pink cheque. ‘What is wrong with it?’. The bank cashier replied her, using the tip of tip of his pen, pointing out to her the contradiction between the name on the cheque and the name on her identity card. After some argument, she gave up and left the bank. She left with the rejected cheque and the rejected identity card.

The revolving exit door of this mega bank is narrow. At the entrance steps, a man looking like a contractor was raising his voice all to himself, ‘How can they say I cannot get my cheque book even in a week… Which kind of bank is this….that the cheque books come from Lagos..? Which kind of bank is this…?’ His matching cap and gown wear extravagant embroidery in bright colors. Getting out of the bank is as difficult as getting in. Standing at entrance are security men in uniforms, sweating and wielding bomb detectors. They run the object all over every customers body, from head to toe. If the customer appears to them like a rich man this security check is waved.

Just outside the bank, on the street, there was chaos. Vehicles of people desperate to get fuel from the filling station on the other side of the road have blocked the road. A big man and his convey were making the scene more chaotic with siren. The big man apparently was using his siren to jump the endless queue of vehicles waiting for fuel. That is one of the advantages of being an important person moving around in a convoy of cars with tinted glasses. A taxi driver was maneuvering to convey his passenger: a woman on the ‘owners corner’  busy reading a glossy magazine, oblivious of the chaos around her. A mobile policeman holds his dirty gun at arms length looking on helplessly. Ahead of this scene, road safety officials have stationed their van, stopping cars asking for particulars and often checking if the seat belt is in use. They take more time with, and do more checks on taxis and car looking old.

The traffic lights are not working. A warden in bright orange uniform runs the traffic. Newspaper vendors move from one angle of the road to another waving bunch of tabloids to drivers and passengers of cars waiting for the turn to have the way. The headlines of these newpapers have no mention of the ongoing fuel scarcity and its impact on daily life. One newspapers back and front pages have been bought by a mobile company promising millions of naira to its customers in so many ways. Lead story of one of the newspapers runs: ‘Budget implementation so far: 28 per cent’. Headlines of other newspapers are full of promises. ‘Government to improve power generation by 2015’. A governor was on the headline calling for the ‘review of revenue formula’ so that states can get more funds to provide water, health care and better education.

After making it out of the chaos from the bank, I have to take you back to the bank again. I have to mention frequent interruption of power supply. The interval of darkness before generating set gets on take everything every transaction to the beginning. There are three ATM in the premises of the with people on queues. Suddenly one of the ATM machines reads ‘out of service’. Customers grumble and move to the other queues. Some people insert their cards in the ATM after some solemn prayers – after all the card may get stuck in the machine, or the machine can say, ‘temporarily unable to dispense cash.’

The prayer of every bank customer is, may I not be caught up in the ‘network is down’ scenario. For so many this prayer is hardly answered.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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