By Providence Obuh

Alhaji Gbadebo Olatokunbo, Shareholders Activist: It is not only about the BGL Group, this country has been ruled with two sides of the scale, one scale for the powerful and another for the less powerful.  The BGL case has been on for sometime, SEC was unable to do anything, now that they are able to do something, good, but they are not doing anything extra ordinary because it is their job to take care of all the anomalies in the market . BGL became too powerful and doing all sort of malpractices is to destroy the market.

If not that the investors involved in the deal took the case to SEC, BGL would have gone away with it. So, immediately BGL noticed that the commission could appoint a receivership, they took SEC to court . However,SEC discovered lately that it can punish the company as a regulator , hence the intervention. Why do they have to wait till such a time and I am sure that BGL is not the only company involved in such shaddy deals , there will be some others, all I am saying in a nutshell is that SEC should buckle up. When they continue to say local investors do not have confidence in the market, how will they have confidence, when they know that if you are being short changed nothing will happen to those who commit the fraud. The same people who commit fraud are the people who lobbied that the Acting Director General be appointed as SEC DG .

I went to Channels TV and said no, he shouldn’t be there, because the people lobbying for him are the people he is coming to regulate, they succeeded in putting him there lets hope he will have the lever to deliver as expected of SEC as a regulatory authority of the capital market. Am not happy with SEC for not disclosing the amount involved in the case. When Sanusi asked banks” debtors to be published, they published names and the amount. What is SEC covering? Why not disclosed full amount? They know that if they disclose, people will shout and ask questions.
 
Mrs. Bisi Bakere, Pragmatic Shareholders Association of Nigeria: If any stock broking firm is found wanting, the authority has no option than to suspend it, otherwise the other stock broking firms will do the same thing and go scot free. So what SEC has done is in the right direction. This has shown that the regulator knows what it is doing. The regulators have to put stop to infractions and atrocities by stock broking firms.

If you watch closely, you will find out that the stock broking firms are committing so much infractions and this action by SEC is one way to put a stop . If their clients have reported them to the authority, of course the commission has the right to deal with them . Also, BGL may not be the only one involved in shaddy deals of this for taken the strict measure it took on BGL. The shareholders who will be affected by the suspension are those who have given them cash to trade with but it cannot affect the entire shareholders that have stocks with them because if a stock broking firm is suspended, you can go to another stock broking firm to transfer the stocks you are having in their portfolio.