Sex-for-job scandal rocks first generation banks

Investigations have revealed rising unethical practices by top officials of Nigerian banks demanding sex from female applicants before being considered for job placements. This practice according to our investigation has become a common phenomenon particularly among first generation banks where marketing target requires less stress because of the huge capital base and track record of confidence by depositors.

Nigerian NewsDirect gathered that young female students of polytechnics and universities requesting for internship in Nigerian banks have become targets of branch managers in search of cheap sexual relationship. In response to reports brought by victims, Nigerian NewsDirect in collaboration with three I.T students of a Polytechnic based in Ogun State were provided with details of how these managers regularly lure unsuspecting victims into relationship through employment.

According to these students, the managers always come with tough aptitude test different from the one for male colleagues which will be very difficult for young girls to pass. In the process of begging for placement, she said these managers will offer them the alternative opportunity to secure a place for internship by asking for sex. The practice by bank managers according to young girls on internship is the norm. “We were shocked when two of our colleagues blamed us for not accepting the offer from one of the managers of a first generation bank in Ota,” she lamented.

When these students were confronted on reasons for rejecting the offer, one of them claimed that her Pastor had warned her not to have sex with anybody in 2014 so as not to become pregnant while still in school. She claimed that her colleagues were annoyed for rejecting the offer. According to her,” I believe that I can still have another opportunity elsewhere to avoid becoming pregnant for a man that is not my choice and then attract the wrath of my mother since my Pastor has informed her about the prophesy”.

She offered to play along with the manager, who vowed to keep the secret relationship with the girl. The manager promised in a voice recorder used by the poly student to confirm the I.T with the head office even though she scored below 40 per cent in the aptitude test.

However, an industry expert said there are female students who really like the proposal by these bank officials as continuation of the practice of offering themselves to lecturers for higher marks on campus. According to him, those girls that accepted the offer by these branch managers to sleep with them for mere internship are the lazy ones who don’t like to study. “So they opt for a sleazy, cheap and easier route to success. The implication of this is that whereas lazy students graduate with better grades, the good ones are made to feel they are not good enough at anything. This is how they will emerge later as managers of banks and even manager of the nation’s economy,” he lamented.

However, he noted that this trend is not good for the nation’s economy. This, he said is because it makes room for those who don’t know their onions to run the economy of the country while those who truly know the stuff they are made of are left to question or doubt their own capabilities, even when given a chance to prove their worth.

He added: “ It is also very common that while interviewing Nigerian women for bank jobs, one of the key questions they are usually asked by their interviewers is whether they would do whatever it takes to lure men into depositing and investing in their banks.

It is not strange that Nigerian men abuse Nigerian women in the banking sector. Bank managers and their directors mandate their female staff members to attract or generate certain amounts of deposits to their banks or kiss their jobs goodbye. The pressure this direction puts on the female bank workers sometimes necessitates them sleeping with men who are neither their husbands nor partners.