BY PETER EGWUATU, In Ghana

The Nigerian capital market will not recover soon until efforts are concentrated at ensuring that confidence returns to the market, says, Dr. Austin Nweze, postgraduate lecturer, Business Journalism and Economics, Pan Africa University, Lagos.

Speaking to Vanguard at the ongoing five day training programme organized by Guaranty Trust Bank, GTBank Plc in Ghana, Nweze revealed that the major reason why the stock market has not recovered was the lack of confidence.

According to him, until the government is able to initiate domestic policies that will restore confidence, the market will never bounce back soon. “To that extent, I see the market not recovering until 2018.”

However, he expressed hope that the Nigerian market will recover as soon as the economy improves, and therefore, encouraged people to invest so as to have weighted average benefit.

He said, “The reason why the local investors are not investing is because of the lack of confidence. Obviously, this is the right time to invest when the prices are down especially to the educated investors. Even the real investor buys both when prices are high and down so that on the whole when there are fluctuations he does not lose completely but benefit on the average.”

The lecturer, also, condemned the International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy on African country, saying it is anti-economic growth.

According to him “African countries are not yet developed like the industrialized economy. So its policy is not environmental friendly for Nigeria at the moment. Our government should begin to initiate domesticated policies that will transform the country. We know our peculiar problems and should begin to address them once we can identify their causes.”

Continuing, he attributed the country’s economic problem to leadership and culture, saying, “Political leaders generally speak gleefully of national interest. This is often a misnomer, a neat packaging for an otherwise hard-to-sell policy or action contemplated by those whose interest it is aimed to serve.

“ In the truth, some public policy measures presented as serving the interest of the majority (in the national interest, politicians would say) are nothing more than private or sectional interests masquerading as being in everyone’s interest. It is not always so.”

To this, extent, he noted that the quality of leadership in a country matters a great deal, adding that culture is another problem. Our orientation and value system must be changed if Nigeria must grow.”