Zenith Bank couldn’t have been luckier, by Tonnie Iredia      

In this era of unbridled political brouhaha, it is significant that Zenith Bank, a leading financial institution in Nigeria was able to briefly capture the attention of citizens to share the good news of an end to one glorious era and the beginning of another in its operations. The famous Jim Ovia, whose name was virtually synonymous with the bank and who has been its founding chairman was retiring and handing over to a genius who happens to be the longest serving non-executive director, Engr Mustafa Bello. One analyst actually described Zenith as ‘mother of all banks in Nigeria and the undisputed pillar of the country’s banking industry’ because of its reported capacity to consistently set high standards for excellence, innovation and financial strength in the sector.

Many of my readers may not immediately appreciate why I imagined that the activities of such a purely private sector entity could be of concern to us all at this harsh economic period. Well, those who know insist that Nigerians should take note of Jim Ovia’s contribution to our country’s development not just as a banker but more as ‘an architect of modern Nigerian finance.’ Magnus Onyibe, one of my long-standing professional brothers reports that when Jim founded Zenith, Nigeria’s banking sector was still finding its footing in a newly liberalized environment. What Jim did in the words of Magnus ‘was not just the rise of a bank but the construction of a financial institution that would come to define discipline, efficiency and corporate banking excellence in Nigeria.’   

Unlike some of his peers, Jim built his bank silently without fanfare or controversies. More importantly, he sought to bequeath knowledge to posterity by instituting a foundation since 2010 which handles annual scholarships for Nigerian undergraduates. In 2021, he also established the James Hope University in Lekki, Lagos whose motto is ‘Hope and Education for Greatness.’ The University is special in the sense that it runs only postgraduate courses in Master of Science MSc and Master of Business Administration MBA. One of the reasons why happenings in Zenith Bank captured the attention of Nigerians was that the founder of the bank has turned out to be more conscious of social responsibility than political office holders who have a constitutional mandate to place premium on the welfare of the citizenry; yet they don’t.

While wishing Jim Ovia more successes in life, it is worthy of note that he has retired without storms just as he has been able to hand over to a great Nigerian whose track record seems to suggest that Zenith can look forward to better days ahead. Engineer Mustafa Bello has never been a banker but he has always exhibited excellence in any assignment he is mandated to handle. To start with, as a student of the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University ABU, Zaria he won the Shell prize for the best project and thesis for the faculty of engineering at ABU in 1978. During the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, Bello was Minister of Commerce who reorganized the hitherto analogue Corporate Affairs Commission CAC – today, it is major revenue generator.

Luckily for Bello, he did not make the mistake of turning down his redeployment from cabinet to run an agency which looked like a demotion. If he had, the wonders he performed at the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission NIPC would never have been credited to him in history. I am well positioned to testify to this because those who tried to persuade Obasanjo to make me Information Minister were told by the former president that he valued an excellent contributor to the greatness of a societal institution more than holders of partisan positions that are subject to the vagaries of political weather. Based on his achievements as Chief Executive of NIPC especially the rise of Nigeria as a preferred investors’ destination, the then President Umaru Yar’Adua reappointed Bello for another five years.

We rejoice with Zenith bank today for its viability and the visible inclination that it will continue to do well. This is obvious from its current transition in which a pioneer builder is being succeeded by an astute manager of men and materials. But more importantly, we are glad that because this is happening in Nigeria, there is the possibility that the flow will go round many of the nation’s circles. It is expected that following global realities, Zenith bank will embrace more technologies that will make banking seamless for Nigerians. Now that the globe has accepted technology as the redeeming feature of humanity, industry leaders in Nigeria must do all they can to make our people accept technology.

Our banks led by the Mustafa Bellos must do all they can to sell technology as the best device for implementing public policy. Never again should our policies fail because they are sabotaged by our banks. For instance, the cashless policy introduced long ago refused to stabilize partly because the bank implemented it half-heartedly. If bank transfers are over within a few seconds, many would have embraced it. But when customers wishing to transfer funds are on queues that are as long if not longer than those paying or receiving cash, where is the beauty of the new policy? Indeed, in at least two major Nigerian banks that I know, all transactions – transfers, withdrawals and paying are all on same queue making it difficult for people to really understand the essence of the new policy.

It is often easier to use the ATM than the banks themselves but none of the two is as easy as the POS. At the same time, new notes that may never be seen at all 3 locations are in excess at social gatherings. Who are the magicians that make it easy for all the denominations of choice to be effortlessly accessible at such locations? If our banks decide to from now on support social responsibility, the situation can be reversed within the twinkle of an eye. Insider abuses if curtailed can also reduce the high degree of fraud that occurs regularly to customers. It is generally believed that those who make fake calls to customers or indeed those who hack accounts are either insiders or have insider collaborators. These issues can be redressed if many more new technologies are patronized.  

When fraud is high in society, it does not really matter whether such frauds originate or have any links with banks; the important thing is that the collateral damage caused by the fraud has capacity to prevent banks in the society concerned from maximizing their potentials to the fullest. This is a major reason why our banks should begin to show some interest in the so-called failure of the use of technology in Nigeria. There is in fact no better time than now for our banks to come together as they did during COVID 19 to look into why our electoral bodies are compelled to always prefer analogue systems. Why can’t our banks decide to support the provisioning of electoral technologies?

During registration of voters in Nigeria, one may be lucky to be registered at a location close to his workplace instead of residence. But a problem arises on voting day when restriction to movement makes it impossible to return to the same location.  Yet, the law in the country is that voters who registered to vote during elections can only vote where they registered and nowhere else.  At the same time, Nigerians who open accounts in a bank can transact business in any branch of the bank irrespective of the distance to the original branch where the transaction was documented. Can’t our banks donate to our nation, the wisdom or the software they applied in making it easy to transact business everywhere so that once one is registered in one location, he can vote anywhere? If this is done, the manual policing of electoral activities especially the secret and fake collation of votes at night will end. Using the judiciary to win election will also end.

The assumption that this might amount to interfering in the nation’s politics is wrong because the banks are not required to be part of the actual conduct of elections. The gains of free and fair elections to the banks are inexhaustive. For one, they can bring forth visionary leaders who will evolve better economic policies that can improve the living standards of everyone including bankers. It could also create more conducive atmosphere for banking activities especially security that would enable all to function without fear of danger. There is no doubt that leaders such as Engineer Mustafa Bello, the new Zenith chair can easily assimilate some of the issues raised above and take steps to use them to elevate the practice of banking in Nigeria.

The post Zenith Bank couldn’t have been luckier, by Tonnie Iredia       appeared first on Vanguard News.