By James Azania, Benin

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has said that bankers and stock market regulators who misled Nigerians into investing in stocks that were manipulated should be punished.

Oshiomhole, according to a statement made available to our correspondent on Tuesday, said that for the war against corruption to have a meaningful impact, “the stick and carrot approach of reward and punishment must be strictly applied in all cases.”

He was quoted to have said this at the Silverbird award organised for the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in Lagos on Friday.

He said, “If we must celebrate Sanusi for what he has done, for the courage he has displayed, for the trouble he took to expose all the abuses in our banking system and helping us to protect depositors, I’ll like to ask those he exposed, those who regulated before him, what are we supposed to do with them, because someone must be wrong.

“One of the paradoxes of Nigeria is that there were others before Sanusi who received awards in the same banking sector. We must be ready to apply the stick and carrot. If we must reward merit as we are doing tonight, we must also punish those who abuse their offices.”

On the stock market, the Governor said, “If you cover up a crime, if you issue a false certificate to a man who is sick and proclaim him as fit and mislead the public to trust and invest wrongly, you are liable.

“A lot of Nigerians have been impoverished because they were misled into investing in stocks that were manipulated to the knowledge of regulators and those regulators are walking freely. So as you celebrate Sanusi, I ask, when are you going to punish those regulators who covered up? If they are not punished, the war against corruption is not on.”

Source: Punch