Dwindling Service Culture in Nigeria: A People in Need of Value Re-orientation
By Alex Enemanna – While Trump’s emergency care for Nigeria continues to attract a cacophony of responses — some applause, others knocks — we must not lose sight of the age-long, home-grown monster that has continued daily to stare us in the face with utter temerity and impunity, challenging the functionality of our system and arrogantly questioning our right to fair and dignified treatment. Hardly is there an adult Nigerian not directly or indirectly impacted by the nosediving service culture across sectors — public and private. Services that leave you unsatisfied, services that make you feel that value has been compromised, and services that leave you sometimes angered and, in other cases, infuriated.
Whether it is banking, telecom, airline, or other services that bring you in contact with a vendor or its agents, several Nigerians of bill-paying age have endured perpetual low standards of treatment, laced with lack of empathy and a sprinkle of rudeness that question the place of the customer as the proverbial king in the scheme of excellent service delivery.
I had cause to use my bank app to pay for a TV subscription a few days ago, that I normally do before the actual expiration day to avoid any circumstance that would warrant viewing disruption. Despite making payment, I discovered that I was still disconnected. When I reached out to my bank, I was told that an investigation had been activated and I would have to wait for three working days before the issue could be resolved. You all know what “three working days” implies from a Friday evening. At that point, service had been disrupted for no fault of mine. The money was eventually reversed nearly a week later, and I was forced to pay more after the disruption.
As a user of banking services, you may not recall how many times you have been debited, yet the beneficiary never receives value until days later; even in emergency cases, where health and safety are involved. That is what we endure in the hands of those providing services. How about the casual attitude with which some attendants just spew “three working days” without the minutest effort to resolve your complaint? In a case where an electricity token was purchased and debit easily passed, yet your home or office still slides into darkness because value was not delivered, what gospel of three days’ patience are you preaching to such a man? How do you feel after confidently making purchases, only for the bank network to go flat and transactions can’t be processed?
How about the hourly struggle with internet connectivity due to the failure of telecom service providers to upscale what they offer to the masses despite the huge cost of data and the growing popularity of remote work? Here we are, still discussing difficulties in reaching our loved ones and communicating freely when we need to, with calls being dropped or text messages lingering like NIPOST letters of the 1990s before being delivered.
This poor culture has permeated virtually every sector, and everyone in a position of offering or enabling effective service delivery seems to assume they owe you something below standard. How often are your flights rescheduled at the 11th hour or cancelled entirely without any shadow of remorse or apology by the service providers?
You walk into a restaurant, boutique, bookshop, or wherever, and the sales representative has his or her attention permanently fixed on the screen of a phone or the television in the office. They sit like a lord and master, the ruler of the universe and stare at you like a disturbance walking on two legs. The least courtesy of “welcome” is miles away from their lips. Service has kissed the dust.
You invite an artisan to fix a faulty pipe, electrical connection, or appliance in your home or office, and what comes to mind is how to provide a quick fix that will have you run after them tomorrow for the same issue. I don’t know which tailor in Nigeria that has not built a reputation for disappointing clients.
The judge sitting in the courtroom assumes that he loses something if he quickly dispenses with a case without adjourning it a thousand and one times. In some cases, people await trial longer than the number of years they could serve in prison if convicted for that offence. Where is the justice?
You take an accident victim to the hospital, and the medical workers start having a mental picture of how good he would look in the mortuary instead of a recovery bed. A recent viral video showed how inhumane, uncaring, lackadaisical, if not callous some medical workers could be when it comes to serving a soul desperately grasping to survive.
This is not different from INEC’s provocative price tag of N1.5 billion to make available certified copies of the National Register of Voters and polling unit details across the country, as demanded by a citizen under the Freedom of Information Act. This may not have been the case if the request had come from the presidency or the governing party. These lacklustre attitudes are driven by the spirit of “nothing will happen” since it’s just a mere citizen that is involved and this has engineered the impunity with which mediocrity is deployed in serving our people. No checks, no caution, no consequences, just anything goes.
These are clearly social issues that undermine our prayers for long life. What is the joy of a man who is hungry but can’t access his money for food over failure of service? What is the joy in having your loved one thrown out of the hospital because bill payment was unsuccessful due to system failure?
There is need for a deep-rooted value reorientation that teaches service providers and their agents kindness, empathy, and courtesy, a deliberate realignment that makes them learn to be in other people’s shoes and understand that life, job, marriage, career, or anything could be at stake if service failure becomes repeated and unmitigated. Agencies of government, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and other regulators, must begin to wield the big stick to send a strong message that the era of taking our people for a ride is indeed over.
Alex Enemanna is an Abuja-based journalist writes this piece Dwindling Service Culture in Nigeria: A People in Need of Value Re-orientation.
