By Michael Eboh

Shareholders,under the auspices of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, ISAN have called for the dissolution of the council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE.

Speaking on behalf of the shareholders, General Secretary, ISAN, Mr Adebayo Adeleke, said that the dissolution became necessary, going by the fact that the present Council was undemocratically constituted and that the process of the election of the current members was against the regulations of the NSE.

He also called on the Federal Government to closely monitor the planned demutualisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange to ensure that things follow due process.

He said, “We advise all relevant government institutions, including the Presidency to take active interest in the matters relating to the demutualisation or otherwise of the NSE.”

Adeleke also urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to consider the implications of the ruling of Justice Mohammed Idris, on the operations of the capital market.

He emphasized the need for SEC to critically study the ruling to enable the commission correct the past mistakes through dialogue with the relevant parties in the interest of investors.

ISAN said that SEC should hands off the day- to- day operations of the Exchange “through the backdoor to engender accountability, transparency and restore investor confidence in the Nigerian capital market.”

The General Secretary also called for the reinstatement of skilled and experienced workers of the NSE that were laid off by the former interim administrator.

According to him, the current unimpressive transactions and lack of investor confidence at the NSE is attributable to the absence of quality manpower. ISAN urged the Presidency to demutualise the Exchange and take other measures to protect investments of about 10 million investors on the NSE.

The shareholders also called on government to look into the ongoing issues regarding trade alerts to investors on the Exchange.

This was in reaction to a recent directive by the NSE compelling Adonai Net, a trade alert service provider to pay 75 per cent of its revenue to the Exchange..

Adeleke said, “The investing public and indeed shareholders have been pleased with the services of Trade Alert and are in full support of the move to list it on the NSE.

For almost six years, the anti-securities fraud service has been running smoothly by the service provider with full subscription by the investors who have lodged no complaints of any sort with the regulators or operators.

“Today, the threat to the system has resurfaced from within the NSE, the Central Securities Clearing System and ostensibly a wider spectrum of collaborators, and so we earnestly call on the president to ensure that the NSE and CSCS respect the sanctity of contracts under the rule of law in respect of Trade Alert.”