Nigeria: Female Bank Marketers, Unholy Targets and the Sleaze - THE NATION
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An article from The Nation says the quest to survive in the uncertain labour market has pitched female bank marketers between meeting their targets and immoral activities.
Excerpt:
Ogechi Obiora studied Economics at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Naturally, she was full of hope of getting a good job after her youth service, having attended one of the best universities in the country, but after staying at home for about three years, reality dawned on her. The jobs just weren’t available. She became desperate and ready to take any job, just to keep body and soul together.
She was introduced to a consortium that offered her a contract job in one of the latter generation banks as a marketer. At first, she was happy; at least she would no longer be a burden on her relations, whom she was leaving with in Lagos.
But after two years on the job, the zeal and enthusiasm seem to have disappeared, and she is desperate for another job. Sharing her story with The Nation, Ogechi who thought this reporter might be of help judging by his appearance at a friend’s office said, “My brother the job is no longer interacting.”
Pretending not to understand her plight, this reporter probed further the reason Ogechi, who obviously works with a reputable bank, going by her corporate appearance and posturing, would want to abandon certainty for uncertainty. But she looked straight into this reporter’s face and said, “This marketing job has not met my expectation.”
According to her, she was given a huge target to meet in terms of customers, whose accounts she was expected to attract to the bank, a situation she says always puts her on her toes; and which has also made a lot of men to see her as a sex object.
More frustrating, Ogechi said, is the fact that some of her contemporaries on the job, who ‘know their ways’ have exceeded their targets and have been given permanent employment status in the bank on the recognition that they ‘are hard working’, not minding what they have gone through. She said a lot of her colleagues go through a lot at the hands of Casanova corporate guys and businessmen, who just want their backs on the bed before they even considered opening an account with their bank.
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