Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
Take this to the strong room, there is nothing diamond about Diamond Bank, but scrap since Uzoma Dozie took over as the Group Managing Director from his business godfather, Alex Otti, multiple insiders revealed to SecretReporters.
For those in the Headquarters, the fear of Dozie supersedes the fear of hellfire as they go about their duties daily with fear and trepidation, whenever the sounds of his footstep are heard.
According to our credible sources, the MD is not only cocky but also brute and brash in taking decisions, without input from other top management staff. We gathered that he has reduced the Executive Directors positions to just three, unlike what exists in the past and other major banks where EDs are six or more.
And if you think that’s all, then you are in for a shocker, as he allegedly turns official meetings into smoking avenues, where he’s noted to be a chain smoker, while addressing heads of departments, regional managers and management staff. Under Dozie, policies that were anti customers were introduced.
One of such policies was when customers were mandated to always use their mobile phones to transfer money to another bank. If the transfer is made inside the bank, the money will hit the other account the next day, instead of the same day.
“The question is that, is it not my personal account? Why must you force me to use a phone? And it’s not everybody that’s technology-driven, so it was affecting the core Igbo businessmen who have nothing to do with phones. One of the Managers was summoned from that loan recovery section for that business review and he brought the issue up”.
Danger was looming ahead, during the meeting, as Dozie was puffing away his cigarette. Unknown to the manager, a mail was sent on Friday evening repealing the policy. The manager had not been to the office to see the mail as he was summoned directly to come from home for the meeting. He decided to bring up the policy issue and asked for a review.
Right there, he was axed from his job by the MD who noted that “Is this guy supposed to work with me when he doesn’t know that this policy has been changed, what will he tell his subordinates?”
Another person was asked about a bad loan during the loan review section. During this section, you can be at your house and be online to participate in the meeting. Dozie we gathered asked a question and he was unable to give answers clearly on a particular loan. The GMD called the account officer who was in the market who got the question very well.
“Mind you, the account officer is a micromanager, who has only a few accounts to manage, while a manager has many accounts and account officers to supervise. Because the account officer got the answer, the GMD just sacked him, that there’s no need having that manager”, a source analysed.
Under Dozie, sources disclosed that workers leave on a daily basis, while he sacks at will, running the bank like a private empire. He sends mail to staff and managers without official tones. He addresses them in the mail as “Dear Chaps and Chapesses…”, including those old enough to be his father.
One of our sources revealed that due to his harsh treatment, “Regional Managers will come back and be crying in their offices, telling you that if not because there’s no work in the country and the need to pay their children’s school fees, they would have resigned, as the embarrassment is too much”
Calls placed to the Communication Department of the bank didn’t go through before press time.
