By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Friday said it’s offering N5.0 million to two (2) winners of its integrity award.
SEC in a statement by Yakubu Olaleye, head, Media of the Commission and made available to InvestAdvocate said each of the winners will be rewarded with N2.5 million each; making it a total of N5.0 million.
The two (2) winners are Nwolbak Jonathan Konpe, an officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and Ngwu Donatus Uchenna, an apprentice trader.
According to SEC, the winners have exhibited high level of integrity in different circumstances. ’’ For emerging joint winners of the award, the twosome gets a total reward which sums up to N5.0 million only. Each person gets N2.5 million, N1.0 million in cash and N1.5 million in investment in the three top performing Collective Investment Schemes in the Nigerian capital markets’’ SEC said.
SEC affirmed the investment in Collective Investment Schemes underscores the Commission’s commitment to stimulating growth in the managed funds segment of the capital markets. ‘’It advertises the near risk – free status of Collective Investment Schemes as an avenue for investing in the capital market’’ SEC said.
The Commission said the bases of the selection of the two (2) winners for the award were the rare acts of integrity and moral uprightness which they exhibited variously. ‘’While Konpe, an FRSC officer returned money in excess N1.2 million recovered from the scene of a motor accident involving nine victims in which seven died, Uchenna was rewarded for returning the sum of N400,000 he found in a tricycle, popularly called keke napep.
Arunma Oteh, Director General (DG) of SEC said the integrity award has the dual objective of rewarding honesty, integrity, purity and transparency as bedrock cultural values of capital markets and encouraging investment in Collective Investment Schemes registered in the Nigerian capital market.
‘’Only Nigerians who exceed the call-of-duty by performing a rare act of honesty, qualify to be nominated for the award. Such Nigerians must therefore be of exemplary integrity in the conduct of their personal, business or professional life. They must be people who have self sacrificed for a higher cause,’’ Oteh said.
In the maiden edition, Imeh Usuah, an Abuja Airport taxi driver who returned the sum of N18 million forgotten in his taxi by his two customers won the award.
The SEC integrity award was instituted last year by the apex regulator of the Nigerian capital markets to underscore the central role which integrity plays in the capital market.
