Restore confidence in Nigeria’s Capital Market, Obasanjo tells SEC

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday, stressed the need for transparency, credibility and stability to restore lost confidence in Nigeria’s Capital Market.

Obasanjo said this when officials of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) who paid him a courtesy visit at his hiltop mansion in Abeokuta.

The former president, who emphasised the pivotal role of the commission in Nigeria’s ailing economy, urged the officials to raise the standard of the capital market.

He said that the Nigeria’s capital market must be credible, stable and transparent to regain people’s confidence and attract foreign investment.

Obasanjo noted that any country in recession like Nigeria needed to trade and attract fund and investment.

He, however, said that nobody would like to invest in an unstable market whose credibility was in doubt.

“When we are in a situation we are now, I think it must be clear to all of us that we must do something quickly to get us out of recession.

“There is no doubt that your own area of activity has a key role to play and so the commission has to work on investment, and has to attract fund.

“You will notice that over the years, many people have lost fortune with regards to their investment in the Nigeria’s capital system and their confidence in the system has therefore been eroded.

“We therefore need to step up measures at restoring the confidence through international best practices for more investment so that we can quickly get out of the recession we are in,” he said.

Mounir Gwarzo, the Director General of SEC, who addressed newsmen after the visit disclosed that the Commission was in Abeokuta to organise Quiz Competitions in Primary and Secondary schools.

He said the measure was part of  efforts of the commission to inculcate financial literacy and investment culture in the young ones.

“One of the things we are doing now is Financial Literacy aimed at inculcating financial knowledge and culture of saving at the Primary and Secondary school levels, and that is why we are in Abeokuta.

“We hope to move round the country having successfully organised it in Kano and Port-Harcourt,” he said.

He said some of the measures put in place by the commission to ensure restoration of confidence in the capital market included the system of electronic dividends and the corporate governance scorecard that had also been launched.

Gwarzo added that the commission had almost concluded plans for diploma and degree courses to be offered in various universities in the country for better knowledge of activities of the capital market.

” Our target is that in the next three to four years, we will have university graduates specialising in financial and capital market studies.”