Nigerian pilgrims and the attack on Saudi banks
By Reuben Abati
I AM not supporting violent conduct but I think the Nigerian pilgrims who took out their anger on a number of Saudi banks on Tuesday, November 3, smashing the banks' glass windows and doors in the process deserve understanding, not condemnation. The story as reported in the Daily Trust (Wed., Nov. 4) is explanatory enough. One of the cardinal rules of banking is that the service provider must know his or her customer (KYC). This provides the necessary guide in managing both relationships and risks.
The Saudi bankers made the mistake of subjecting pilgrims who needed to cash their travellers cheques to unnecessary delay and humiliation. First, it was only Nigerian pilgrims that had to queue up at the banks. Why Nigerians only? Were the Saudi bankers trying to suggest that the Nigerians could be holding stolen cheques? Coming from a country where a queue in a banking hall could mean shoddy service, no money, or humiliation, the Nigerian pilgrims must have been seized by the emotional memory of the banking situation at home, forgetting for a while that they were in the holy land. I have been in banking halls where such delays led to the customers raising their voices and asking the tellers and their bosses to hurry up. We are Nigerians. We don't like to be delayed.
Has anyone forgotten the case of the member of the House of Representatives who was asked to show his identity card by a security guard? He responded with a slap to the guard's face. Don't you know who I am? Don't the Saudis know that we are Nigerians? The affected banks got off lightly with only a few smashed windows. It could have been worse. The bank managers should count themselves lucky they were not beaten up. The Tuesday encounter must provide a learning opportunity for the Saudi Arabian banking sector: don't mess with Nigerian customers, or any customer coming from a country with a banking crisis. I can bet that the key impression in the minds of the Nigerian pilgrims must have been about the possibility of their cheques being dud cheques.
Suppose the Saudi bankers were trying to play a fast one on them. For three days, the Nigerian pilgrims had tried to cash their travellers cheques, but they were reportedly kept on the queue from one bank to the other and told stories. This was in Saudi Arabia, not Nigeria. Impossible, they must have thought. They had no money; many of them could not buy food. A few started spending the Naira notes they had to buy food from fellow Nigerians. Meanwhile, they were not sure that their travellers cheques would be honoured. Today, very few Nigerians trust bankers. For the past month or so, Nigerians, the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia inclusive, had been treated to stories and revelations about all kinds of sharp practices by bankers. Bankers who steal depositors funds. Bank CEOs who loot the bank and use the funds to buy private jets. Banks which give unmerited overdrafts creating a new generation of "onigbese billionaires".
Banking, even by the Central Bank of Nigeria's recent definition has been taken over by crooks who should face the firing squad. It is not impossible that some of the violent pilgrims may have been swindled by Nigerian banks. Now to get to Saudi Arabia and be told their travellers cheques (which should be as good as cash at hand) would have to wait, was more than enough provocation. If the Saudis have a video tape of the protest by the pilgrims, they should study it carefully: many of the pilgrims must have been saying: "Na lie o, una no fit thief our money for this place? If anybody try dat thing wey dem try for Nigeria here, dat person go hear word. Are you saying our cheques are bad because we are Nigerians?" The smashing of the windows was just a warning signal: the Nigerians could have smashed vehicles or start a bonfire on the main road, or carry placards. If the matter was not resolved quickly, they could have sent an SOS to the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress "to come quickly to Medina and save us with protest rallies!" They need to be understood: no Nigerian pilgrim behaved in that manner last year or at any other time before now. But these days, banking transactions drive Nigerians up the wall and raise their worst fears.
Good news: none of the pilgrims was arrested. You see, the Saudis knew they were at fault and they didn't want the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister coming over to give them a lecture in international diplomacy! Last Sunday, officials of the Saudi Central Bank went to the Nigeria Hajj Mission in Medina to lodge a formal protest about the attitude of some Nigerian pilgrims and "to appeal to Nigerian officials to prevail on the pilgrims on the need to be patient in whatever they do while in the holy land." If the Nigerian officials had done their job in the first place, assisting the pilgrims with logistics and information, there would have been no problem. Many of the pilgrims involved were old women and illiterates who could not understand why they had to queue up in a Saudi bank. The Nigerian hajj mission says "it is doing its best to protect Nigeria's good image in Saudi Arabia." I don't think so.
The Saudi Central Bank officials more or less expressed surprise that anyone in the Holy land could behave as the Nigerians did. All that talk about the Holy Land begs the issue. The pilgrims who broke the windows do not need to be told that they are in the holy land. They know. And that sermon about patience? In fact, if a quiz were to be conducted on what the Holy Quoran says about patience and forbearance, the Nigerians could win the prize. The only problem is that in Nigeria, religion is an event for many persons, not a way of life even when they pretend that it is. There is a yawning gap between private and public morality that explains individual and group attitudes. It is a contradiction that outsiders may find puzzling but which means nothing to us at home. Some of the most embarrassing infractions in public life have been committed by persons who occupy the front row in churches and mosques. One pastor who died in a plane crash a few years ago left behind an estate worth billions of Naira; the EFCC traced the money to accounting fraud he committed, when his two widows began to fight over the sharing of assets.
Persons who have been indicted in the current banking crisis are also very prominent patrons of religious groups. So, the Saudi authorities do not need to preach to Nigerian pilgrims. They know already that Islam is a religion of peace. They know that it teaches patience, temperance, and forbearance. But "not where money is involved"- that is the simple message from the Nigerian camp. Going to Nigerian officials may not help: Nigerians do not trust their officials, who if they are allowed to get involved could start asking every pilgrim for a percentage kickback! What the Saudi Central Bank authorities should do is to ensure the prompt payment of the travellers cheques as was the practice in the past.
Saudi banks do not work every day. What is that? They should work everyday whenever Nigerian pilgrims are in town! They should do everything to avoid provoking Nigerians in the future. Only a few windows and doors were broken this year; the pilgrims could arrive in Medina next year better prepared to break heads should any bank waste time attending to them. The Saudis should learn from the British. When they built a brand new Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, a special section for the re-packing of excess luggage was reserved for Nigerians, the biggest load-carriers in the world! We are a nation of reasonable people. We just expect other people to be fair to us.
More importantly, Nigerians know their rights. Since the country's return to democratic rule in 1999, every Nigerian has been talking about rights. Insisting on those rights, as patiently as possible, as the law requires and the religions preach, may not necessarily attract the attention of government or bring results. In effect, most Nigerians have learnt to take their rights into their hands and act as their own enforcers. When university lecturers patiently told government to honour agreements reached on conditions of service as far back as 2002 and the officials kept dragging their feet, the teachers went on strike, shutting down the entire university system for four months.
Eventually, they got the government to listen to them, even getting more than they had asked for. In the Niger Delta also, patience didn't help. The people had been waiting since 1957 for projects and programmes that successive governments said were in the pipeline. Militant youths seized those pipelines, broke them down and held the entire country to ransom. Now, they have been able to get some attention. It is the same Nigerian strategy that has been applied with the Saudi Arabian banks in the matter of unpaid travellers cheques. A few broken windows and doors and the Saudi Central Bank had to wake up: Nigerians are in town, and they are pilgrims with a difference!
