I have always wanted to write about this wicked practice that has been going on for about a week now. over here in kano where i stay, i suddenly found out that thousands of people are rushing to open bank accounts especially first bank, i mean this are people who are supposedly not literates, have no businesses or source of income yet are rushing to get email addresses and passports for opening of a bank account. Not long after then, a friend walked up to me and asked if i had a BVN number, to which i said yeah!, he then asked if i was interested in opening a bank account with first bank and i would be paid five thousand naira monthly but i would hand over my atm to them and they would be sole signatories to the account. I was surprised and inquired what the account would be used for but he refused to tell, i was opportune to speak with another friend in the day who told me that, these accounts were opened for the sole purpose of making withdrawals abroad, and that when accounts has been opened the atm are handed over to someone who deposits money in those accounts, get them converted to dollars at the bank rate, then makes withdrawals outside the country and when they are back they change hard currencies to naira at black markets, making a profit of One hundred and twenty naira over Every one dollar invested. This is a 61% profit, all coming from the governments purse. I mean the trend just got worse with these scammers getting to open accounts for kids, just so as to use their BVN for scrupulous activities. And i am very sure banks are aware but they dont care as they are making huge amounts of profit from these activities. I mean what is this country turning to, everyone is complaining about how bad the economy is and yet some people feel its an avenue to enrich their pockets. For crying out loud the government is the one funding these profits, cant they see what its going to do to the economy. If this trend continues i believe there is no way the naira is going to bounce back against the dollar, so something must be done.

Oh I see. That's why some people have been caught at the airport with many atm cards of various names. But this can only take place in a predominantly illiterate and ignorant society where one person can agree to open an account and handover the details

lalasticlala come and chi chumchin

Op how do you mean? are u saying first Bank in kano charged their ATM transactn at official rate? From my observation presently almost all the banks charge above N300/$ except stambic which is still N280, so how does those guys make profit?