Four months after heist, banks still remain shut in Ile Oluji

Indigenes and residents of Ile Oluji, in Oke Igbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, had looked forward to Thursday, February 6, 2020 with huge excitements.  The date held a whole lot of significance for both residents and indigenes, especially those steeped in the tradition of the town.

For instance, the day was supposed to signify the commencement of the funeral rites of a top traditional ruler in the community, the community’s female traditional ruler, the Lobun of Ile Oluji, Mrs. Dorcas Adetomiwa, who passed on some months earlier.

According to the community’s traditions, the demise of such individual requires that certain activities within the community be changed or put on hold till the funeral rites are successfully concluded.

“The market would cease being held at Odolua Street, where it is always held, every five days, till the funeral rites of the deceased have been concluded. It will be moved very close to the palace of the community’s traditional ruler, the Jegun of Ile-Oluji. But if it’s the female traditional ruler, the market will be relocated to Odomikan part of the town. It will only go back to Odolua when a new traditional ruler has been installed.  It’s a way of telling stakeholders in the town, especially visitors, that something unusual has happened,” explained Chief Henry Akinsuroju, an indigene.

Little wonder, then, that the date generated so much interest among indigenes and other stakeholders. For them, it was yet another opportunity to see history being made before their very eyes!

Curiously, they got more than they bargained for, on the day! Men of the underworld, in their numbers, stormed the serene community when workers, especially bank staff, had started locking their office gates for the day.

The robbers, armed to the teeth, had targeted two financial institutions, a first generation bank and another new generation bank, in the community. And, by the time they were through with their operation, which lasted close to one hour, not less than five people, including men of the Nigeria Police, had been dispatched to the great beyond.

Besides disturbing the peace of the community, more than four months after the incident, economic activities disrupted in the community are yet to peak.

An indigene of the town, Mr Ige Tofowomo, is still at a loss concerning the incident, which rocked the town to its foundation. While expressing his disgust at the activities of the hoodlums, Tofowomo argued that it might take the community some time to recover from the shock of the ‘invasion’ due to the huge human and material losses suffered during the raid.

“I have been around for some time, but I can’t remember witnessing such a gory incident in the town. It was an incident that disrupted and dislocated the lives and economies of people and businesses in the community. And till date, everybody still seems to be counting their losses,” added the retired civil servant.

“It’s like taking us back to the stone age; that is,  those days when regular financial intermediaries were difficult to come by,” lamented Jide, a civil servant who works at the local government secretariat located in the town.

Jide, who operates an account with one of the relocated banks in the town, now travels some kilometres to do his banking transactions.

Ola Akinsoyinnu, who operates a barbing salon within the town is also having his fair share of the frustration.  Though he has found alternatives in some of the money agents dotting the nooks and crannies of the town, he, however, described such alternatives as coming at a cost to him.

“For instance, instead of walking into my bank to  save or withdraw money from the  ATM, as I used to do in the past, doing that now at any of these mobile money shops around comes at a cost. I now pay for every saving or withdrawal that I do nowadays, at any of these mobile money agents’ shops around here,” he said.

Besides the threat to the profitability of small businesses in the town, not a few residents believe the exit of the two banks might create a lull in the economic life of the community.

“I knew the type of activities that were carried out in and around these banks when they were around. Sometimes, you could hardly find a space to even park your car at their premises, located in the middle of the community. But now all that is gone, and the community will have to wait a little longer for those glorious banking days to be back,” lamented another indigene and cocoa farmer, Akinwalere.

One of the traditional title holders in the community, Chief Henry Akinsuroju, would rather allay those fears of banking going into oblivion in the town. He assured that the good old days of seamless banking transactions would soon be back in the community.

“We are not resting on our oars. We are on top of the situation. The leadership of the community is unwavering in its bid to restore normalcy in that area. And I can assure you that banking activities will soon be reactivated in the community,” he added.

Corroborating the above claim, the community’s traditional ruler, the Jegun of Ile Oluji, Oba Olu Adetimehin, assured residents and indigenes of the community that the ugly event of February 6 would soon be interred.

“There is no way a community as big as Ile Oluji can operate without the presence of these financial institutions in the community. We are making efforts at ensuring that very soon the two banks resume operations,” he said.

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