. Prominent clients shun its marketers for rivals
.MD Ifie Sekibo’s albatross of rage
Things fall apart for Heritage Bank as you read. The bank’s resort to gang justice was never an intelligent debt recovery approach. Anger was never an effective negotiation tool with its debtor, Senator Andy Uba.
Soon after the bank’s staff picketed the Abuja residence of Senator Andy Uba and called him out over a huge debt he owed the bank, the repercussions are dawning fast.
To the chagrin of the bank’s rank and file, especially Ifie Sekibo, the Managing Director (MD), who authorised the public ridiculing of Uba, the bank’s prominent clients are refusing to do business with it.
While existing clients have become wary of conducting further business with the bank, its prospective customers and other target publics, have clearly distanced themselves from the bank’s marketers.
Nobody wants to receive the Uba treatment; they do not wish to be embarrassed by the bank if business goes awry between them.
It would be recalled that Sekibo authorised the deployment of chaos by his underlings at the bank in reclaiming what has undoubtedly become a bad debt from one of its prominent customers and Anambra political juggernaut, Sen. Andy Uba.
On Monday, June 21, a motley crew of protesters from Heritage Bank stormed Uba’s residence in Abuja, to mount a picket line. The intent was clearly to embarrass the politician with the hope that he would settle his debt with the bank. His failure, to do that, argued the protesters, would result in job losses for the bank employees keeping vigil in front of his house.
However, few days after the bank publicly embarrassed the All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain and flagbearer at Anambra’s forthcoming gubernatorial elections, marketers and other staff of the bank are feeling the brunt of their misguided action.
The bank’s major clients have deserted it and are moving their accounts to its rivals with more mature management and humane business culture.
It would be recalled that The Capital warned earlier of likely consequences to Heritage Bank’s action having analysed the situation and ascertained that MD Sekibo’s juvenile resort to use of force and a public smear campaign to muzzle Uba into repaying his loan would be counterproductive. It is understandable that the bank’s MD was clearly at the end of his tether. But having channelled anger in a juvenile fit, his bank is paying a heavy price for it.
Anger, he must have learnt, is both an unforgiving master and a foul, cunning slave who assumes the aspect of a counsellor, but whose advice is a deadly poison.
Heritage bank committed corporate suicide by poisoning its operations with large doses of angst and gangsterish behaviour. To reclaim his bank’s debt, Sekibo scorned legal means of intervention through the courts and regulatory agencies and plunged deep in rage’s sewer.
But by deploying violent measures to reclaim its debt, Heritage Bank lost the goodwill of its present and prospective clients.
Unfortunately, no help is coming to the bank from anywhere even as it wallows and sinks in a riotous wave of debt and ugly liabilities.
Heritage Bank is in crisis; and it’s a consequence of bad management, lack of visionary planning, and inability to recoup many of the bad loans they gave out in a time of plenty.
