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| Headquarters of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Abuja. |
When it was time for me to go to the university, I had to choose Banking and Finance, which had been my preferred choice of course. Unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky. Instead of banking and finance, I was offered English and literary studies, which was my second choice.
I went to the university to find out why this was so and to see whether I could effect a change back to Banking and Finance, but there was nothing I could do about it. The school authority insisted that I should either accept the course offered me or wait until the following year to try again.
After a second thought, I decided to accept English and Literary Studies and to forge ahead with my life. The fear of staying at home for a year without an admission and the fear of my likely failure of securing another admission the following year informed my reason to do so.
To be God be the glory, I was able to complete my university education without a hitch. Interestingly, I discovered English and Literary Studies to be more interesting than I had expected it to be.
One of the commonest problems usually faced by job-seekers in Nigeria, including university graduates, since the mid-1980s till date, is the problem of securing jobs. It is easier for the head of camel to pass the eye of the needle than for job-seekers in the present-day Nigeria to find a job.
The story was, however, different in my own case. I didn’t experience such difficulty. As soon as I graduated and completed my compulsory one-year National Youth Corp Service, my uncle, Sim, assisted me to find a job with one of the vibrant commercial banks in Lagos, even though he had retired from the banking industry at that time.
The bank posted me to its marketing department. I never liked marketing, but because it came from a bank, which had been my dream place of work, and because of the difficulty of securing a job in Nigeria, I had no other option than to accept the job.
The job required me and other members of the marketing team, most of whom were ladies, to move from house to house, street to street, market to market, and office to office, soliciting and trying to convince members of the public to become customers and of depositors of our bank.
It was a very tough assignment because of the crisis that affected the banking industry in the past and the subsequent loss of confidence by the Nigerian banking public. The job was simply like a person trying to squeeze out water out of a stone.
I remember one of my first prospects, a big-time businessman, saying to me: “I don’t think I can put my money again in the bank after losing so much in one of the banks that was liquidated some years back.”
What made the bank’s marketing job tougher was the target given to me and my colleagues. We were given a target of a large amount of money to bring in to the bank every month if we must retain our jobs.
From the nature of the job, my colleagues and I needed a bag of luck or a miracle to meet that target. That literally boxed me into a very tight corner and left me dazed.
The practice was not peculiar to my bank alone. It was common to several other commercial banks in Nigeria, where some ladies I knew worked.
The first prospect that gave me the hope of success was a young man called Adams. I don’t think he was up to 32-years-old at that time. He told me he was a businessman and that he was into the business of importation.
I later, as our conversation progressed, discovered that he was an advance fee fraudster, popularly called 4-1-9 in Nigeria. He was willing and ready to become a customer of my bank and to make a huge deposit, but on the condition that I gave him something in return.
Guess what that something was. SEX. He knew that I was married, from my name and from the wedding ring on my finger, yet he insisted on going to bed with me.
I almost accepted his condition for the fear of losing my job, but just about that time, a voice inside me said to me; “Remember you’re married and what if he sleeps with you and does not have any money to deposit in your bank?”
When it became glaring to me that the young man was not ready to do business with me without me giving him sex, I decided to leave him and go for other serious prospects. I left him physically, but my spirit was still with him. Unfortunately, I later went back to him like the dog that went back to its vomit.
Find out, in my next and concluding story, what happened during my second visit to his office.
See you then!
Story By Agatha.
