COVID-19: Ibadan residents decry jettisoning of social distancing by banks

Banks
By Ibukun Emiola
Ibadan, April 21, 2020 (NAN) Some residents of Ibadan have condemned how some banks have jettisoned social distancing while attending to their customers, in utter disregard for the rampaging COVID-19 pandemic.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on Tuesday, large crowds of people were seen on long queues at some banks in the city without observing social distancing.
Speaking on the incident, one of the bank customers, Mr Tunji Adepeju, said it was not good enough, as one would have expected bankers to be more enlightened and more customer- friendly at this time.
He said that the long queues and large crowds in some of the banks might have been due to faulty ATMs.
“I imagine that the ATMs are not working. If they were to be okay, not many people would want to go into the banking hall.
“Banks should do better by following the rules of social distancing and funding their ATMs as much as possible,” he said.
Adepeju, however, admitted that some banks were following safety protocols and even putting up canopies for their customers, while arranging them to go inside the banking hall in multiples of five.
Prof. Olanike Adeyemo, the Chairperson of the Oyo State Decontamination and Containment Project, in her remarks, said that banks were a major risk factor in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They are not socially responsible at all. They might have donated to government but their failure to maintain safety protocols is not acceptable,” Adeyemo said.
Also, Mr Rotimi Omoniyi, attributed the long queues to the fact that most of the banks had reduced their staff strength.
He said that the current situation had created tension among many bank customers, thus making it difficult to put them under control.
Omoniyi further said that failing networks also got people bored while in banks, as people now collected money in bits due to the lockdown.
“When some people get cash alerts, they quickly go to the bank to collect it for the maintenance of their families. So people go to banks on regular basis.
“Even those who have huge sums in their accounts withdraw in bits for security reasons. So, there will be large crowds in banks and people need to ensure they adhere to safety protocols, especially social distancing, when they are in public places,” he said. (NAN)
IBK/FF/WAS
Edited by Fela Fashoro and ‘Wale Sadeeq