By JOSEPHINE AGBONKHESE

A former Solicitor General and Director of Public Prosecution in Abia State, Dr Ngozi Chianakwalam is Chairman cum Chief Judge, Investment and Securities Tribunal, IST, a body set up by the Federal Government to resolve investments and securities’ issues in the capital market

The second woman to steer this wheel since IST’s inception, Ngozi who was called to the bar in 1978 was Director of Registry at the Corporate Affairs Commission from 2001 to 2006, a period in which she also sometimes acted as registrar.  She speaks on her career choice as well as plans for IST in this interview.

Have you always wanted to be a lawyer?

The only two career options I was open to while growing up were law and fashion designing.

That was because I was born to a lawyer father and a mother who’s a fashion designer.

But I settled for the legal profession because I was greatly inspired by my father who was also a judge. I however love to sew. In fact everybody in my house sews. I was making my own clothes while in university.

For readers who know nothing about the IST, what’s it about?

The Investment and Securities Tribunal, IST, was constituted and formally inaugurated in 2002 as part of the Federal Government’s key reform of the financial sector. It is a specialized and fast track civil court of all purposes for the resolution of disputes arising from investments and securities transactions.

The IST has both original and appellate jurisdiction to hear and determine capital market disputes.

You’ve chaired the body since 2013. How effective has it been in the discharge of cases?

Disputes are resolved in an efficient manner. All matters brought before the Tribunal are disposed of within 90 days from the date of hearing and we adhere strictly to it. The IST has an Alternative Dispute Resolution centre which provides an opportunity for parties to be involved in mutual settlement of disputes through mediation. As a matter of fact, the whole essence is to provide an efficient resolution of capital market disputes with a sense of fairness and transparency.

What was the focus of your workshop held in Lagos recently?

Ngozi Chianakwalam

The real essence of that workshop was to sensitize the general public about the activities of the IST. The stakeholders need to know that there is a place to seek redress and justice. By stakeholders I mean anyone that has something to do with buying and selling of shares. There is a need to inform and enlighten them on where and what to do as stakeholders in the capital market sector.

The theme of this year’s workshop is ‘IST: A Veritable Tool for Development and Growth in the Nigerian Capital Market’ was well thought of.  One of the key performance indices of the IST is that we must have at least three enlightenment workshops in a year.

For some time now, we have not been able to do this because of lack of funds and non budgetary provision for the organization. We have not been able to have such workshops for a while and the course of events which unfolded throughout the year had also resulted in the delay of knowing the way forward.

Now, it is obvious that the national economy is quite low and the performance of the capital market has gone down a lot. We, therefore, thought that we should also share some information and enlightenment. One of the indices for measuring a capital market is their conflict resolution mechanism which many countries do not have. IST is a trail blazer in the market, especially in Africa and other emerging markets. We would like to let the international community know that they should have confidence in the Nigerian capital market.

What’s the most challenging case you’ve handled in the last one year?

That was a case with non-executive directors and their responsibilities, as well as culpability, in case of any infraction.

…and your most memorable achievement?

That should be the fact that we moved into our official property in Abuja. When I resumed in 2013, one of the challenges we had was that we were occupying and operating from two different offices in Abuja at very exorbitant rates and you know landlords and the way they keep increasing the rent every year.

So, we said that the best thing was to see what we could do to get our own building. The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, gave us a grant, as the then Minister for State for Finance requested that they assist us. The grant was supposed to clear the rent for about three years. So when we got the money, I realised we could save cost by using it to get our own space. It was a cost-saving mechanism and we approached the Ministry of Works to help us. Then we got the approval of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, that was at the beginning of 2015  and we were able to move in the same year. The FEC also mandated the FCT Minister to give us land, where we would build a befitting purpose built structure for IST. Now, we are looking forward to the new Minister of FCT helping us to get land as well as the Ministry of Finance assisting us to build a befitting place for our Courts.

Challenges so far?

That was part of the sensitization that we did and we talked about whether our constitution should be amended or whether a fresh bill should be presented or both. And then we also looked at whether IST should be an independent agency or we should still be under the Ministry of Finance, where we are now. These are all options that we have now and it is very important that the status of IST be secured in the role it plays in adjudication in Nigeria. At the same time, we need to be careful about where we really want to be. Do we want to be in the Judiciary or the Executive arm of government? But we have to understand which one would serve the purpose. So in that case, we would set up a work group that would look in it. I have had discussions with the Honorable Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, and she is also of the view that this should be resolved as soon as possible.

What is your agency doing to stop completely or limit the challenge to the jurisdiction of the Tribunal?

I have discussed with the Chairman of the Capital Market Committee of the House of Representatives and the Chairman, Capital Market Committee of the Senate. All of them are of the view that this is important and we’ve been talking about this in a long while. Even the Vice President, who is also a lawyer, has handled cases in the IST and he is very familiar with our court and he is desirous of having the bill presented. Now that everyone is anxious to get that bill passed, we are really going to work on it and I believe that this would be the focus of the New Year. There would be limited challenge to the Jurisdiction of the Tribunal once the Bill is passed and the Constitution is in place.

So, what’s the position of the law about IST?

Right now, the position of the law is that after judgment, the person who wants to enforce the law has to go to the Federal High Court and register our judgment there. This is part of what the new work group would look at and part of what would be in the new amended ACT. This means that IST should be able to enforce its judgment. If someone commits contempt of court before us, there is not much that we can do. You can’t really try the person. But in a regular court, if anyone commits contempt of court, you should be able to summarily try the person. Some people had even talked about having criminal as well as even civil jurisdiction but I do not know how that would work out for now. However, these are part of the things that we are looking at and we would look at everything holistically. At the same time, the Vision 2020 committee recommended that the jurisdiction of the IST should be expanded to include all the financial services and to include the banking and insurance ACT, paving way for all financial institutions to come under the jurisdiction of the IST.

…and your utmost desire for IST?

My greatest desire is to take this tribunal to the grassroots; to get  our services as close as possible to the grassroots so that people can recover their lost money.