By InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-The Board of Nigeria’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) Monday at its 66th meeting approved the disengagement of Ballama Manu Interim President of Council of the Nigerian Stock exchange (NSE) and Emmanuel Ikazoboh his Deputy from the Council of the NSE.
This was contained in a Press Statement by Edosa Kennedy Aigbekae, Secretary to SEC on the order of its Board and made available to www.investadvocateng.com.
“The Board also considered issues regarding the Council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and particularly the request of the Interim President of the Council that having stabilized the Exchange; they should be allowed to begin the process of disengagement†the Statement said.
According to the Nigeria’s SEC Board, after due consideration, it approved the request of the Interim President of the NSE to disengage; but directed that it should be effected in an orderly manner.
“The Board also directed the Council to take steps to ensure that all legal issues affecting the effective functioning of the Council are addressed. The Management of the Commission was also directed to work out the modalities for this disengagement with the Council†SEC said.
Early April 2011, Ikazoboh handed over to Oscar Onyema as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigeria’s Exchange and subsequently remained on the Council of the Exchange as Deputy to Manu, the Interim President on the directive of SEC.
Part of a Press Statement on April 03 2011 signed by late Lanre Oloyi, then Head, Media of SEC and made available to www.investadvocateng.com said the task of the then Interim Administration was not yet completed.
The Statement said that a lot more work will need to be done to put the NSE on a sounder footing so as to achieve the objectives for which Nigeria’s SEC intervened.
“In order to speed up this work, the Securities and Exchange Commission has, in the public interest, and pursuant to section 35 (1) of the Investments and Securities Act (ISA) 2007, directed the Council to admit some professionals, as public interest members, to strengthen the Council and support the new management team.
The entire SEC nominated members, including Messrs Ballama Manu and Emmanuel Ikazoboh, shall be on the Council pending the election of a new council and are charged with working with existing Council members to achieve the following:
(a) Restructuring the Exchange to ensure good corporate governance practices;
(b) Concluding the ongoing initiatives/plans regarding the trading platform and other infrastructure of the Exchange aimed at making it a world class Exchange;
(c) Guiding the new Management team over the next few months to settle; and
(d) Preparing the Exchange for its demutualisation including the restructuring of the legal framework.
We expect the restructuring exercise to be quickly concluded so that elections can be conducted to establish a new Council. We are hopeful that by that time; all the cases in court would have been disposed of so as to allow the Interim President to conduct elections without any legal impediment†the SEC Statement said.
