By Peter Egwuatu
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it has not approved a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as being speculated.

The Commission’s spokes person, Mr. Lanre Oloyi revealed to Vanguard that the Board of SEC has not yet approved any person for the position of the NSE CEO.

According to him, “if the Commission gets the list of the selected persons in the various vacant positions from the NSE, the Board will screen them and then announced the approved list.  For now I am not aware of any letter sent to the Commission in that respect but in due course we will let you know”.

It has earlier been reported that three persons scaled through the interview process out of the I31 people who had applied for the position of CEO.

The names include: Mr. Oscar Onyeama, Chief Administrative Officer of the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), Yvonne Ike, a former staff of JP Morgan in the United States of America and Bola Onadele, CEO of Datanet Limited.

It was also gathered then that the interview panel consisted of the Interim Administrator, Mr. Emmanuel Ikhazoboh, Alhaji Maccido (Council Member), Ms. Tinu Awe (acting as Secretary) and two officials from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) gathered to conduct the interview for some of the short- listed candidates.

It will be noted that following the sack of erstwhile Director General of the NSE, Professor Ndi Okereke Onyiuke by the SEC on August 4, 2010 as a result of alleged mismanagement of the former management, an Interim Administrator was appointed in person of Mr. Emmanuel Ikazoboh and was given the task amongst others to recruit a substantive CEO in a transparent process.

So the Exchange had  through a credible and transparent process was able to source candidates through open advertisement, conduct a screening process and assessment center, conduct panel interviews, and send the three topmost candidate to the Commission for screening. Only after they have been screened and cleared by the Commission, could the Exchange go ahead and extend an offer to the selected candidate.

In a statement released weekend, Ikazoboh stated that the Council is currently awaiting approval of its choice from the SEC.
According to him” further, the Council has reached an advanced stage in the selection process for each of the three Executive Director positions.

It is expected that this process will be completed in January 2011.  The Exchange expects that the persons engaged for all four positions will assume duties no later than 1 April 2011.

“The position of the Exchange to get the approval of SEC is in accordance with previously agreed procedures, that the apex capital market regulator should give its approval to any candidate .The Exchange intends to hire prior to their engagement by the NSE.

Continuing, Ikazoboh said, the Exchange has adopted an entirely auditable, thorough, and transparent multi_stage process to ensure that the best talents are recruited for the four available top management positions. The positions are: Chief Executive Officer; Executive Directors for Listings; Strategy and Business Development, as well as Market Operations and Information Technology”.