Agege Bread advert: Sterling Bank MD, Suleiman tenders apology

Following the barrage of criticisms that greeted the Easter day celebration message to Sterling Bank customers, its Managing Director, Abubakar Suleiman, has vowed to investigate the circumstances that led to the blunder.

Franktalknow had reported that the bank in a message to its customers to felicitate Christians on Easter had compared Jesus Christ’s resurrection with the rise of Agege Bread, a popular Nigerian bread, known for its soft, stretchy and chewy texture.

“Like Agege Bread, He Rose! Happy Easter,” the short message to its customers read.

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The message since Sunday has continued to generate outrage from Nigerians, who called on the federal government, the Christian Association of Nigeria to sanction the financial institution for being insensitive to the Christian faith.

Also, a boycott of the bank was called for, while APCON has affirmed that it would sanction the bank for putting out unapproved material.

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READ ALSO: APCON vows to sanction Sterling Bank for offensive Easter message

Although the Sterling Bank, after being called out on social media, tendered an apology for the offensive message, their MD, Suleiman, on Monday also noted that the editorial processes of the material fell short of the bank’s policy standards.

Suleiman, while admitting the error, stated that they had no malicious intent to compare Jesus’ resurrection with the puff-up of Agege Bread.

The apology letter read, “On behalf of the Management and Staff of Sterling Bank PLC, I write to tender our apology to our community for our Easter message email of 17 April 2022.

“The content of the infographic and the message it contained was insensitive and failed to consider the very sober nature of the event being commemorated, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“While the message had no malicious intent, there is no place for content that fails to fully account for the feelings of billions of people all over the world.

“Our honest intent was to join our millions of customers in Nigeria and worldwide in celebrating this sole event, but our execution fell short on this occasion.

“Our policies are clear on what constitutes acceptable customer communication and this message should not have been released to our customers. On this occasion, our editorial processes fell short of our policy standards.

“As a responsible institution, we immediately withdrew the offensive material and initiated a review of the circumstances that led to this failure. We will further sensitize our workforce to ensure this unfortunate lapse in judgement never repeats itself.

“We thank you for your continued trust in us and apologize again for this unfortunate incident.”