It has become very evident that there appears to be a flagrant
uneagerness by the banking industry to attempt redeeming itself from the
grave and obvious danger of sinking very low in the esteem of decent
people. Today, most people are wont to draw parallels between female
bankers and the growing pack of unprincipled actresses, and between the
banking industry and the fast becoming scummy pond we call our home
video industry. This is most unfortunate, because, before now, the
hallowed precincts of the banks epitomized the cherished ideals of
civility, responsibility, decency and scruples.
We already know what to expect from an emerging brand of actors and
actresses whose uninhibitable and licentious ambience often offers very
alluring incentives to become celebrated weirdoes. We can appreciate
their desperation; a desperation born out of the thirst to, in so short a
time, hit a box-office ! success in a circle perennially plagued with
aridity of clear imagination.
And because society has in excess supply voyeurs and men and women of
obscene tastes, the tendency is to avoid the long tortuous trajectory
of tasking the intellect to realize well-plotted drama, and relapse into
the cold refuge of a filthy short-cut. The result is the unedifying
sight of a bunch of actresses pulling off their dresses in order to
feast the famished eyes of lustful men and even women. Of course, I am
told that these hare-brained strippers are the “real professionals”, who
are only “interpreting” accurately their roles. One of them has been
shouting herself hoarse that she has the support of her parents and her
“pastor”.
As if all these Edo “bush-meats” being periodically bundled back from
Italy do not also have the support of their parents and their
“pastors”. Or as if these bunch of over-bleached flesh that swoop on you
like rapacious vampires as early as 6.30 pm once you apply the br! eaks
along Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, or Allen Avenue, Lagos, to beckon a
bread vendor do not also have the support of their parents and their
“pastors.” The point is that I do not see any difference between all
these categories of women. May be, what can be said is that some are
more dignified than the others. But the truth is hard to deny that they
are all using what they have to secure what they want.
That is why it must be painful exercise to many who are now forced to
lump female employees of our banks, especially, the so-called “new
generation” variety, into this pack. Sometimes, it is difficult to
discern the real problem of women. One moment they seem to be
proclaiming through their actions: Please, I am too cheap! With just a
few notes you can have all of me! Just for the asking! Then the next
moment, they are grumbling that men do not rate them highly. So, what
are we really going to do?
But then the bank is the last place one would have expected to
witness this malaise. It is difficult to visit any of these banks,
especially, the so-called “new generation” variety, and not feel
thoroughly disgusted. The other day, a friend went to one of these banks
in Lagos, and was offered a seat by a merry, cheerful,
flesh-advertising female employee. He turned down the gesture and
offered instead to be attended to downstairs. When asked why, his reply
was straight- forward: “I don’t sit with naked women!”
It is indeed very painful that our banks would come to this sorry
state in their pursuit of huge but of course dirty profits. The way
women, young and old, hop about in these banks with skimpy skirts that
barely cover their crotches, and blouses with necks cut low enough to
rudely flaunt bulging boobs at your face, is sickening. I am told that
the more female flesh you expose, the more fat deposits you attract.
That is the new trend in jet-age banking. The other day, a staff of one
of these banks came to my office to see a colleague on official matters.
She might as well have not bothered to wear any skirt at all because
the one she wore hardly covered anything. She was fair, very fair.
She may also be said to be pretty. I am told that she is married with
one or two kids. My colleague told me that he had tried to ask her why
it was necessary to appear that indecent. She had tried to utter ! some
blurred babble about company policy, corporate image, smart appearance,
customer-impressing robes and all such gibberish. Her husband, she said,
used to complain initially, but has since got used to it. Poor man, his
wife probably picks most of the bills. My colleague tried to talk about
God and his attitude towards such obscenity. But the lady snapped back:
she is born-again; she worships with one of those Chapel of This or
Cathedral of That, or This and That Assembly that populate every cranny
of Lagos. Her Bible of course was in her bag.
I guess that her “pastor” does not talk about Christ’s promise of a
milestone being hung on people’s neck and they being dumped into the sea
if they go ahead to cause people to sin. To be fair to the woman, she
did confess that she does not really enjoy those outfits, but then what
will she do? She must keep her high-paying job. Well, the funds are
rolling in; the “pastor” is there giving an encouraging smile and some
warped rational! izations, and the naïve husband at home is not
complaining, so why on earth should the bird-brained doll of a woman
allow any prick on her long dead conscience? That there are pastors
today who encourage these obscene dressers can only vindicate the trite
view that human beings of the identically dirty minds necessarily
congregate together to worship their god, which is certainly not the
holy God that made the heaven and earth. So, from a New Generation Bank
to New Generation ‘Church’.
Talk of depraved beasts of the same hue necessarily stalking
together. But only God knows how many men who had urgently visited the
prostitute after ogling at this shameless lady because of her vulgar
dressing. Only God knows the trouble she had caused to so many
emotionally immature men. Indeed, her so-called pastor may not tell her
this, but she must pay for it on the day of reckoning. And that would
come pretty soon.
Please, let us not be deceived, the devil has
populated the world with his! children parading themselves as ‘funky
pastors’. Beware! The consolation, however, is that if there is the bad,
then, there is also the good. That there are adulterated goods does not
foreclose the abundant existence of the genuine ones.
It appears that these banks are determined to take full advantage of
their human (female) resources. I heard of a lady sent to “persuade” a
chief executive to make a deposit in her bank. Though she was dressed in
the usual “persuasive” attire, she still had vestiges of her morals
intact. The chief executive was willing to make the deposit, but on one
condition: the lady must let him see beyond her mini-skirt for a weekend
at his hotel room. As he said it, unabashed, a fatuous smile played on
his lips.
But the lady thought this was unfair, shameful, in fact an insult.
She reported back to her manager and expected an outrage against such an
unholy demand. But the manager had a different opinion. Looking
straight into the lady’s face he said: “I don’t know what you are
talking about. But let not this bank lose that deposit. How you do it is
your business.” Of course the lady perfectly understood her manager.
She also detected the veiled threat. And she did not want to lose her
job either. Well the end of the story is that her bank got that deposit.
And the lady got a commendation and bonus. Do not ask me whether she is
married to some unsuspecting fool of a man somewhere who is busy
luxuriating in the deceptively pleasant feelings that his wife brings
home a fat pay-packet every other month. That is the rot, the decay, the
stench, the slime that now goes for banking policy. And this lady i! s
just one in a thousand cases, in which women are now compelled to
compromise their morals and marital fidelity, yes to hawk their bodies
to rake in huge profits into their bank’s coffers.
How can Nigeria, and indeed many other nation just sit still and
watch some boardroom tin gods turn people’s wives and daughters into
corporate pros titutes? Some ladies of loose morals who have found their
ways into these banks are making it big? They are faring better than
their counterparts who hang out in the evenings at Allen Avenue, rushing
at your car like a brood of vultures or bunch of determined hawkers of
sub-standard or contaminated wares. The corporate colour, which these
banks give them, enhances their prices. As they are doing well for their
banks, so they are also doing well for themselves. And nobody is
complaining. Many have metamorphosed from forced, conscripted victims to
eager, solicitous whores.
It is that bad. Truth is: a whore is a whore, whether found in the
hallowed precincts of a bank or at an unlit corner of a dingy street at
Isale-Eko. They are united by their p! ossession of the same qualities:
cheapness, worthlessness, indecency, disposableness and valuelessness.
And since the banks are happy and the ladies are picking the bills at
home, no row is made. Perhaps somebody will tell me that this is
feminism, and that these women are introducing a revolution that will
make them rule the financial sector, and wrest it from the domineering
hands of men. Assuming they will not become HIV-positive before
achieving that feat, what with the emerging fact that condoms are no
longer an effective protection against AIDS.
Somebody must put a halt to all these. Can’t some of the women who
still have their morals intact organize themselves and say NO to this
madness? Can’t all these women groups who are dissipating their energies
campaigning for a perennially vaporous woman president force these
banks to the path of decency and level playing? Must the easiest way of
becoming a corporate prostitute be to get an employment in a new
generation bank and insist on working at the Marketing Division or The
Customer Services Section where you would be sent once in a while to one
Chief Executive to “persuade” him to deposit some huge sums in your
bank? But assuming the Chief Executive is a woman? Should these banks
then send her a smashing young dandy to seduce her off her hard-line
posture? How dirty!
Sometimes, when women complain of marginalization and relegation, I
tend to blame them for it. They are the ones who are eager to prove to
men that they are too cheap, in fact, cheaper than “pure water”. The few
of them who still hold their heads high and remain on the side of
decency are considered odd. Thank God, we still have this few. But they
are too few to convince me that woman is still not the world’s cheapest
commodity.
