Adeola Aderounmu

During the week I reported about this year’s bleak Christmas in Nigeria. The Nigerian Guardian Newspaper is reporting this morning that 1 500 people have been sacked by the Intercontinental Banks.

The bank has over 300 branches in Nigeria and approximately 5 person/ bank received letters of disengagement, as reported by the Guardian Newspaper’s correspondent Muyiwa Adeyemi.

The compensation given is 3 months basic salary irrespective of how long they have worked for the bank. Yea, welcome to Nigeria, the land of injustice.

After these 3 months, what are these workers supposed to do? One thousand five hundred..! How many households are we talking about? How many children are going to be affected?

Nigeria has no social security program for the unemployed. Unemployment is already rife and the effects on social vices cannot be over emphasized.

UBA-The United Bank for Africa also laid off 2 000 of its work force. This compounds the already overloaded unemployment market for which no reliable statistics are available. But millions of Nigerians lack gainful employment and many graduates are using their skills mostly in informal jobs.

Things are really getting worse based on realities that we can see and experience. This is one of the reasons why it is so frustrating so see the negative effects of governance in Nigeria. Corruption, greediness, nepotism, tribalism and all sorts of vices have denied us of the type of growth and development that we should actually be experiencing.

In all of these the politicians are getting richer. They make loads of money that they do not deserve, their actions do not improve the standards of our lives and they continue to do things that are not only irritating but also invariably extremely inimical to progress. They loot, steal, plunder and sniff everywhere for ways to get richer and richer while the masses are left with the mess from their misdemeanours.

This is Christmas season and for these people who have been thrown out of jobs without any form of security, you can imagine the impact on their psychological and social wellbeing. It is not going to be easy as they must now desperately seek ways to put food on the table for their families and dependent relations. I wish them well, now and always

Merry Christmas Nigeria..!

UPDATE: Oceanic Bank has also sacked 1 500, as at Dec 21 2009.