By Hannah Isibor, Magbegor Zino & Paul Metu

Mr. Chinyere Nwankwo:

I have been observing that so many investors come to Annual General Meetings, AGMs, just to collect the food and gift items that are being shared. The way people queue up to collect gift items and all is uncalled for. It is not as if it’s bad; the companies are only using it to appreciate the fact that they (the shareholders) came for the meeting. But the way some of the shareholders conduct themselves is very bad.

Some of them come, collect the gift items and leave without waiting to attend the meeting which was organised for them to get the necessary information about their shareholding. Some of them collect more than one gift item. I saw some that collected up to three bags, making it difficult for other shareholders to collect. These are the people giving the shareholders bad names and making it seem as if shareholders are hungry people.

What I think can be done to stop this attitude is for the companies to withhold the gift until the meeting ends before they give them out. That way, the shareholders will wait for the meeting because they can’t leave the gift items. But it’s sad all the same because it is this kind of attitude that gives the shareholders bad names.

Pastor Williams Adebayo:

If you look at it constructively, even abroad, attending AGMs could be very tough; you see people throwing tomatoes on the board members, but the truth about the matter is that most people you see at AGMs are mostly poor and downtrodden people. Most of the wealthy shareholders do not attend AGMs; that’s the truth. Most people you see at AGMs are pensioners, applicants.

You will hardly see someone who has invested his money to buy shares struggling to eat snacks when he has dividend to collect and he knows how much he has invested. So, most of the people you see hustling for food at AGMs are fraudsters, pensioners or applicants, who got the information from an uncle or relative and use the info to come and collect food. But generally, like I’ve said earlier, wealthy people don’t attend AGMs. Although there are rich shareholders but they don’t attend AGMs.

Elder Ade Oduntun:

It is the thugs who don’t even have shares in this companies that are responsible for this talk of investors being referred to as hungry people. People bring them to the AGMs and they use them to collect gifts. They go from one Annual General Meeting to another looking for food and other gift items to collect. They are the ones who have given us this bad name. But the responsible shareholders, those that have truly invested and know what investment really means do not behave that way.

Shareholders are responsible persons, pensioners; people that have investments, that have companies and know what they are doing, and understand the fact that there is more to attending AGMs than just collecting of goody   bags. They know what shareholding really means and how important the information being passed across to the investors at the AGMs are. I don’t struggle for anything because my major interest   in any AGM is the information I would gather during the meeting and not the food or gift items which the   companies share at   the venues of the AGMs.

Mr. Boniface:

Somebody has asked me that question before, why do we leaders not ask FirstBank to give items to its shareholders at its Annual General Meeting because other companies are giving; I said look if you’re coming to AGMs for the purpose of gifts, then you are deceiving yourself. Some of them do not even know what they’re doing; they come because Flourmills  is giving out a flour bag or whatever and when the company is doing something important, nobody will know, they are only interested in the gifts items which is to   be shared at the AGM.

I told them my friend I can’t do it, you can’t ask us to share gifts to you; if that’s your aim of coming to the meetings forget about it. You should come to meetings to learn how your company is doing, ask questions, seek for information; that’s what the meetings are all about, and know how your shares are been managed. Don’t come to AGMs for the purpose of collecting gifts, that’s why Nigerian shareholders need to be adequately educated.

We are trying to educate them but they don’t want to be educated. They only commend you as a good leader when you make it possible for gifts to be shared during AGMs, but I said no, I can’t do it, that is not the purpose of my being a leader. It’s is for me to ask questions, for me to lead you to know what is going on in the company, and other better  ways to serve the investors rather than giving them gift items during AGMs. It’s a process; we have a long way to go in tackling the issue of investors being referred to as hungry people.