By NKIRUKA NNOROM

The General Secretary of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, ISAN, Mr. Adebayo Adeleke, has condemned the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, over non-inclusion of investors the its Capital Market Committee, CMC.

File photo: The floor of Stock exchange

The CMC is charged with the responsibility of charting a 10 year Capital Market Master Plan that would return the market to path of sustainable growth.

Adeleke also blamed the SEC over multiplicity of shareholders” association, saying that the SEC DG, Ms. Arunma Oteh, seeks to destabilize activism among shareholders’ group and also remain in control of the various associations by sponsoring break away groups.

He also cautioned the commission’s DG over any involvement in partisan politics, saying that such involvement is not to the best interest of the market.

Speaking at a workshop for Capital Market Correspondents , in Lagos, he said that thecommittee may not achieve any meaningful result with the exclusion of shareholders/investors who are the fund providers in the capital market.

He said, “Before MKO Abiola died, he said that of all professions in the world, he loves barbing because it is not possible to shave a man’s hair in his absence. So, it is only in Nigerian capital market that you have Capital Market Committee that does not include investors. That is the truth, and the investor is the provider of the capital and without it, you only have market without capital.

…Number two, we have a DG of SEC that in the past three years has met with shareholders two times and in less than two hours. In fact, one of them was so insulting, and before she could sit down, she said I’ve got a flight to catch and off she went. What kind of insult is that? Last week Monday, she called us to Abuja and she wasn’t there.

It is only in Nigeria that you have a DG of SEC who is supposed to be bypartisan attending a political party rally.

So, when you say ‘oh these guys are making a lot of noise’, look at what they are saying, are they making sense? Because the way we are looking at it from the inside, other people are also looking at it from outside. You just have to look at your market and say, ‘are these people serious,’ because these things are not peculiar to our nation, there are other capital market platforms and regulators all over the world.

On multiplicity of shareholders’ group, he said there is nothing wrong with having multiple shareholders’ association since the constitution allows freedom of association. “So, the same way you have multiplicity of political parties and newspaper houses, is the same way you have shareholders’ association. Because the SEC did not define the composition, it could be me, my wife and dog Nigeria association; it is a constitutional issue,” he said.

“Let me say this, SEC has been in the fore-front of not only recognizing these associations, but encouraging them. They think that by playing ‘divide and rule’, they can get at the major or the big shareholders’ associations, so they call them often to Abuja to do what? I don’t know.

“But I will tell you something, SEC is doing that because they also want to control or let me use the word, regulate shareholders’ association. That is not within their purview, absolutely and because the major shareholders who have been there all this while, we tell them, ‘you can’t do that, we will not agree.

So they are beginning to sponsor minority break away factions, telling them ‘look, if you come, we can do this together’. But I have told them, soldier go, soldier come, barrack remains. So, as far as we are concerned, we are not bordered about that.

He, however, blamed the multiplicity of shareholders’ association on unemployment level in the country and dubiousness of companies management. “Quite a lot of our companies are culpable, if you don’t have something to hide; I don’t see how one man riot squad will hold you to ransom. You don’t see them around the corridors of multinationals that don’t give out money.

They won’t even go to such AGMs because they know there is nothing there,” he added.