There is one or more of them at every organisation or institution here in Sierra Leone and across the world. He seems to be everywhere he is not supposed to be and at the end of his interactions at that particular locale, especially in relations to women, nothing is what it is supposed to be.
There is a Mr Yani at the highly reputable Rokel Commercial Bank – RCBank. The name Yani was given to him by the women at the bank who said he has ‘yarned’ (seduce or approach) every female at the bank and is notorious for sexually harassing them, touching them in inappropriate places despite their complaints or obvious discomfort.
It was relayed to Nightwatch Press that several years ago our Mr Yani was able to convert a bowser full of fuel meant for the bank’s operation in our very unstable electricity supply situation to his own personal use. At the end of this theft that should have had anyone from any organisation or institution fired, Mr Yani went and prostrated himself before the bank’s then manager begging for his job, his freedom and reputation. He knew that his action was tantamount to him being fired, handed over to the police for prosecution and the death of his career as no bank in their right mind would have ever hired such an individual.
Say what you may but the bank manager was gracious enough to forgive Mr Yani, who it would seem was emboldened by this pardoning to now use his new found wealth to bluff his way into the lives of many gullible women at the bank.
Sexual harassment and theft are two acts that must not be encouraged or allowed to continue at any institution, more especially a bank where people keep their life savings hoping to have them at their disposal as they get older.
Apart from being a burden on the female staff the perpetrators of such acts pose a serious threat to not only the bank’s reputation, but also to the image or impression people have of the bank. This trust, which banks operate on, is very hard to build.
Ask any serious bank manager and he or she would tell you for free that the herculean task about their job profile is building the trust necessary for their target market to feel comfortable enough to keep their money in your bank.
Therefore when such stories of theft of a whole bowser of fuel and the continued harassment of female staff by a routine serial sexual harasser pops their ugly heads up, banks are known for keeping them a secret. They are kept a secret because the bank is afraid of what reputational risk such a disclosure would do to a bank.
The end of the ordeal is that things get swept under the carpet to save the bank’s image and reputation. This puts the bank in a “catch 22” situation: the bank is damned if it makes public such an action, they are also damned if they keep it a secret.
Making the theft public would make many people especially the bank’s clients to question whether such actions are common occurrences and if so what is the scale and gravity of such actions. How do these actions bear on the bank’s single action of holding in trust our many deposits and other such monies we happily and trustfully deposit at the bank?
By keeping such actions secret the bank is made to suffer the indignity of giving the perpetrator a free pass to do as they please.
In the case of Mr Yani, your time is up. You should know that the bank is on to you and the female staff members have especially had it with your behaviour. Several of them came to this medium to voice their opinions and relay stories of having to deal with you pinching their buttocks and whispering “bitter little nothings” in their ears.
Mr Yani, according to one of his female victims, is in the habit of not only smacking their rear ends but also telling the women that he is willing to check and see if they have a clitoris (an insulting way of him attempting to differentiate between the women that went through the traditional ceremony of Bondo Society where women’s clitoris, what we call “konk” in our colloquial Krio, is removed and those that didn’t).
There is a whole lot more to say about our Mr Yani but Nightwatch will bring out the details in subsequent editions. Please stay with this press as we follow this story that if allowed to persist will have an adverse effect on RCBank’s reputation going forward.
There is nothing more dangerous to a bank than reputational risk.