Wema Bank: A Brand in Turbulent Waters - 2008-09-29

From the suspension, to the recall and eventual sacks of its former managing director coupled with its inherent litigation, the recent suspension of some 26 senior staff of Wema Bank  further reinforces the fact that the newly repositioned brand is swimming in turbulent waters, writes O'Lekan Babatunde.

The consolidation in the banking sector ignited by the sitting governor of the apex bank necessitated to a large extent the necessity for the banks to revamp their marketing efforts and improve their general look and feel in other to attract opportunities in the emerging highly competitive business terrain.

The banking public has therefore been inundated with marketing and branding activities in the sector with the 25 surviving banks more or less banking on the new perception they have managed to create to drive their respective businesses.

Wema Bank, a bank, previously owned by the Odua Group, championed by Ogun, Oyo, Ondo and Osun States constituting the majority equity stakes of the 67 years old financial institution though that radically changed in favour of the investing public.

The bank along with other players in the industry, realized the need to broaden its horizon especially with the power of the state investors in the bank being reduced with the new restriction on ownership structured as put in place by the consolidation arrangement.

Like other marketing oriented institution's, the bank embraced a rebranding exercise to give a new fillip to its marketing and general disposition to business. It contracted Enterprise IG now The Brand Union Africa for the rebranding exercise.

As much as the public would want to see a revamped Wema, the internal crisis that has engulfed the institution has robbed it of all the vibrancy that was expected to come with the rebranding targeted at repositioning the bank as an institution with a national outlook rather than its Odua states ownership orientation.

Mr. Adebisi Omoyeni, former managing director, who took the bank through the consolidation experience, initiated the rebranding, at the inception of the exercise explained that “complexity and the challenges of the financial reforms informed the board on the need to refocus and reposition the bank.

The foreign brand consultant and the local agencies which include Bates Cosse, Explicit Communications, among others gave the bank a new look and feel changing from its traditional green colour to an uncommon purple. The logo witnesses complete overhauled giving the bank a new look and feel.

Instead of settling down to build on these, the bank has been engulfed with internal wrangling which has seen to placing the managing director on a prolonged suspension in the first instance. Mr. Omoyeni was called back only to be sacked in less than 24 hours of recall.

According to latest findings by M2, a series of crises have distorted the internal implementation of the rebranding process. One of such recent instances apart form leadership crisis is the recent placing of 26 senior staffers of the bank on an indefinite suspension.

According to internal sources who spoke on a condition of annonymity, the 26 senior officers of Wema Bank are currently at the brink of losing their jobs consequent upon the on-going debacle in the bank.

Mr. John Aboh, the former Ag. GMD/CEO, of the bank, according to our source, authorised the indefinite suspension of the twenty-six staff members of the bank before his exit.

“A memo authorized by Mr. Aboh, during his stint as the Ag. GMD/CEO of the Bank, authorized the Human Resource Head, Mr. Dele Olaolu to relieve the 26 staffers for their alleged complicities  in bank when Mr. Adebisi Omoyeni, former Managing Director resumed duty after his recall from the forced leave of about seven months,” the source stated.

Another source further emphasizes that the suspended members of staff were accused of “holding allegiance to Mr. Omoyeni and are therefore placed on indefinite suspension without pay until their cases are investigated and determined.”

The decision which was said to have been hastily taken by the management under the leadership of Aboh was arrived at without recourse to the due process of query-and-response system known in corporate governance the source pointed out.

Incidentally, officers currently placed on suspension are key officials of the bank's local wing of Association of Senior Staff Union of the Banks Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSUBIFI). The affected staff include Mr. Demola Fayemiwo, (President); Mr. Paul Arotiba, (Vice President) and Mr. S. S. Oluwanisola, (Secretary General). At the time of this development, Mr. Fayemiwo was said to be in far away Kenya, East Africa.

According to investigation, it is only the Board of Directors that can suspend officers in the categories of Assistant General Manager but the memo was claimed to have unilaterally suspended Mr. Sanmi Adeeko and Mrs. Funmi Owolabi both AGMs and Mr. Muyiwa Fagbola, Deputy General Manager.  

In the principal managers category, Mrs. Laide Omotosho, Principal Manager, (Public Sector); Mrs. Titi Atewologun, Principal Manager (Treasury) and Mr. Moses Akinyemi, Principal Manager (Lagos Island Region) were also affected. Sources in the bank inform that it is the establishment committee of the bank that is charged with the responsibility of taking disciplinary action against principal managers.

Further investigations reveal that while most of the affected 26 workers do not work in the head office of the bank, all have been in the service of the bank for well over 10 years and risen to senior positions. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Adebisi Omoyeni, the embattled Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Wema Bank Plc, recently removed from office,  has moved the battle to the law courts for the determination of what he regards as injustice, unfairness, and abortion of due process by the Central Bank of Nigeria over the handling of the Wema Bank crisis.

In a suit filed by his legal team on Monday September 8, 2008 before Justice A. I. Chikere of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Mr. Omoyeni prayed the court among other reliefs, for an exparte injunction to allow the status quo remain, as it was on 3rd September 2008.

While Omoyeni contests his sack from the bank in the courts, the bank's initial projection to build on its customer loyalty and retention, and to also shore up the bank's brand equity and foster a contemporary and enduring corporate culture are all suffering. The raging crisis erodes the bank's image, reckons Mr. Bankole Ogbonaiye, a banker in Lagos

Mr. Ogbonaye  believes that the longer the crisis is, the more its debilitating effect continue to manifest on the brand whose shares has long been freezed or technically suspended from daily trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange market.

For Dada Ajai-Ikhile, Managing Director, Next Media, the crisis is weakening the bank's competitive strength; it makes it become a hardsell to prospects while the sack or suspension of the 26 staffers is like building ambassadors the wrong way. The earlier the matter is laid to rest, he said the better for the brand.

“The crisis is such a distraction that all the gains of the rebranding has been eroded. The bank's awareness is for all the wrong reasons” he added. According to him, there was the insinuation that the logo and slogan were not original, just as the management was wriggling out that and managed to put that behind them and launched new products, before this management crisis started.

This presents the bank as unstable in a market where competition is already going continental or global. “It is rather unfortunate that Wema is still grappling with management instability and of course its ability to complete is right now endangered” Dada submitted.