By Hannah Isibor, Magbegor Zino & Paul Metu

Pastor Williams:

As a result of the global meltdown which happened in the year 2008, Nigerians are becoming weary of investments; they are afraid because they lost terribly and as such, do not want to venture into investments again. But we need to create awareness especially among the youths and potential investors and the best way to create this awareness is by empowering the shareholders association groups, and encouraging people to set up shareholders association groups. The students in the higher institutions should be encouraged, that’s where SEC’s role comes in to encourage young people, especially students to set up shareholders association if they don’t have any in their schools, by educating and supporting them.

They should let them know that with their little upkeep, a broker can buy as low as 10 units for a customer. It is not necessary for you to become a billionaire first before you can buy shares, this type of awareness is very good for our students in the higher institutions.

The last time I was opportuned to meet Ms Oteh, I encouraged her that she should at least visit some of our Institutions to meet with these youths.  Like most expensive stocks, if you register through a broker, a broker has a grade because he is trading too; he has a grade to buy as low as 10 units for a customer and at the end of the year, you’ll get little dividend and as time progresses, bonus may even be given. So the layman on the street should invest through the broker.

We should also let these youths know that investment is as cheap as them entering an eatery to buy snacks. if you look at the price of a bottle of malt today in any of the eateries around is very cheap, you can use almost the same amount of a bottle of that malt drink to buy a particular stock and become a shareholder of that company. It’s a joint effort. The SEC, brokers should try and the existing shareholders associations should realise that our youths are our future.

Pastor Olagoke Samson:

The Securities and Exchange Commission has been doing well, but they still have to organise more seminars for shareholders at the grass root level. Shareholders these days are very careful and they are well educated. So with all these and the help of SEC through seminars to enlighten the grassroot investors, more people will begin to participate in the market, especialy local investors. They should just organise seminars. There are quite a lot of people, particularly those of us who are in shareholders association, who are very articulate. We are working towards that organising such enlightenment campaigns.

Mr. Chinyere Ohaja

I joined the list of shareholders years back when I started working in the bank. Shareholding is very profitable, except for the fact that sometimes we experience cases of share depreciation, but they are great advantages when shares appreciate and when bonuses are being given. So I implore the younger generations to start investing, it all depends on the company you invest your money with; when you invest with big companies ,you have an advantage of making profit.

Elder Ade Oduntun

We can advice people about shareholding. It’s very important, people should be able to buy shares from good companies. Share buying has a lot of benefits for the shareholders. It’s like a farmer who plants crops and is expecting harvest, even before the harvest time, the mere fact that the crops are growing well will bring happiness to the farmer. This scenario can be likened to a shareholder.

One thing I’ll tell you is this, you know change is very difficult in the sense that people do not want to change from one form to the other; they don’t want to adjust to new things. I think with persuasion, people will change and will come back to the market.

Mr. Okazie Boniface

SEC takes either three percent or there about from every transaction, which is supposed to be used to educate Nigerian investors, but unfortunately, we are not seeing that. If SEC organises seminar, they always ask you to investors to pay and how many investors can pay N20,000,or N10,000  to attend seminars. SEC is meant to organise seminars to help educate investors but they don’t.