By Dele Sobowale
“The easiest way to destroy any organisation is to put liars and unethical people in charge”
— Anonymous 1979

Nigeria’s capital market is totally wrecked. It had been partially demolished by 2008, but there was still some hope. Now it is in ruins – thanks to the heads of the two institutions controlling it. The global community, and nations with honest capital markets, whose shares are heading for the basement, must be amused that in Nigeria those who are supposed to build the capital market – the NSE and SEC—are exactly the ones destroying what is left of it.

Two “ladies” are involved. In fact, they now constitute the leading edge of the wrecking crew. The first is the former Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, DG-NSE; the other is the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, DG-SEC. By the time those two women are done with each other and the capital market, there will be no market worth talking about. They have devastated it through unethical conduct on both sides.

The road to capital market ruin was first paved by the former, the DG-NSE, and she started in 2003 when she headed an illegal group called CORPORATE NIGERIA to raise campaigns funds for the re-election of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice-President Abubakar Atiku.

Companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange were asked to donate to the fund. Only God knows how all the companies which made the donations forged their books to cover up the illegal payments. And till today, nobody else knows how much was collected, how much was spent on the gala night and how much was pocketed by the convener – the DG-NSE.

But I recollect warning her then that if she continued to mix illegal political activities with the highly technical management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, she will go down in history “not as the woman who built it, but as the one who wrecked it”.

In 2008, the former DG-NSE was back with the same political stunt. That time she publicly announced raising funds for the Obama campaign – something totally illegal in the US. She raised millions which could not be sent to the Obama campaign, and that would have been the end of the story until the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stepped in and forced her to disclose the amount collected and she was forced to forfeit the funds and given a warning.

What made the 2008 escapade more galling was the fact that Dr Ndidi Okereke-Onyuike was undertaking this unnecessary and unsolicited assignment at a time when the NSE was in deep trouble and the market was in a free fall. The greed inducing this and the degree of irresponsibility underlying the actions speak volumes for her.

Again in October 2008, in my SUNDAY VANGUARD column I wrote the DG-NSE another warning as follows: Finally, I wish Madam will take a piece of advice, even though unsolicited. She should quit while there is still a send-off party to be given. For it is a fact that:

Volat ambiguis Mobilis alis hora, nec ulli Praestat velox Fortuna fidem (Latin)

On fickle wings the minutes haste And Fortune favours never last.

— Lucius Seneca, c4B.C-A.D 65.

(VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS pp 65-66).

P.S. I don’t expect her to take the advice, but there are two men in Nigeria today, once immensely powerful, who would have been happier if they took the ones given them.