I'm about to tell a real story. Something I witnessed and I found shocking. Actually, I'm lying. Not shocking, I mean, this is Nigeria. I won't say what bank or mention any names because I don't wanna be sued for the small money I have. Lol.
As I strolled into a bank to handle some business, we realized that there was a bit of loud talking and what seemed like some sort of dispute. They were decent enough to keep it away from areas where most customers were even though in my opinion, they could have found a better location for such occurrence.
Anyways, my friend and I plus several other customers got the lo down from a staff about what was going on. What happened was, they "caught a thief." Now, these 2 men came into the bank with an original cheque that didn't belong to them. They had signed and were about to be paid off when the teller or someone realized it was a group account and I'm guessing maybe other signatures were missing. I'm also guessing it was a fairly large amount, which might have been one of the alarm triggers. I believe the account belonged to a church and one of the offenders was actually a son of one of the pastors in the church.
So what we walked in on was the judgement. They had the dude kneeling down and a staff was beating away with a belt while others were querying him and abusing him. So, me and my 'activist self' made a comment to my friend saying that they should stop beating him because they were violation his human rights. As I said this, a man walked by and I think he was probably a manager or something in the bank. He looked at me and asked if I sent him to do the dirty work. I said no and I restated what I initially said.
He went in, did his own bit of abusing and querying and yelling then came back out to look for the girl who said they shouldn't beat "the thief". He made a comment like "where's that girl who said they shouldn't beat him, come and marry a thief." I shook my head at his ridiculousness. He came out to talk to me and said that he stole. I said "yes, I know he stole and he was wrong." He said "wrong?" I said "yes, and he should be punished." he said "punished?" I said "yes. He was wrong and he should be punished but you are a bank, it's not your duty to beat every one that tries to fraud your branch. Hand him over to the police and let them do the work." I mean, educated young bankers are beating a thief in a bank. Seriously? I could think of other banks in this same Nigeria where such things would never happen. And I said more about his human rights violations and you won't believe what this man said to me. He said "we are going to lynch him, go and tell any activists."
Ofcourse he was just saying that to tell me that I can't do anything about how they have chosen to handle the situation but seriously? I thought to myself that him and others like him are one of our major problems in this country. Irrational thinking, poor decision and problem solving skills and most importantly, individuals that are high on power. Let's think about this, you are a bank, an institution that will always encounter attempts like these, in fact, some will succeed. Will u beat all of them? I'm sure we know how Yoruba people feel about stealing. It's like you have just launched a nuclear attack. Because of this, I think he felt that killing him was proportional to his offense. How much could this guy have tried to withdraw? What if he came in with a gun instead? He tried to scheme and he failed and he must be punished but not like that. What about presidents, governors and other white collar crime perpetrators? Why isn't anyone beating them? Does he think those ones are better than this petty thief? No! They are not. There's no greater sin. Sin is sin, no matter the gravity.
I also understand some of the other bankers' plight, which is that the guy jeopardized their jobs if he would have gotten away with it. Nigerian banks don't function as a whole in cases of fraud. A blame must be appointed to someone. Someone must take responsibility because penalties must ensue. As a Nigerian banker, you are expected to have superhuman fraud detecting skills. You sign off on a fraudulent transaction in good faith, your ass is grass. You pay it back or face the consequences. Whereas, in Canada for example, you would still have your job as long as they investigated and found that you signed off in good faith.
I also believe they took justice into their own hands because if the police was involved, they would have jerked around and the case may never make it to court but the bank should have lawyers that would follow such cases through to make sure the dude got exactly what he deserved. After all, fraud is a punishable federal statute.
But hey! What do I know?
~kdamsel~
