By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Wednesday announced it has sealed off 32 offices of New Nation a wonder bank.
SEC in a Statement by Yakubu Olaleye, head of media and made available to InvestAdvocate in Lagos Nigeria said in an unprecedented clampdown, the commission last Tuesday commenced a shut-down of the premises of a wonder bank, New Nation in 32 states of the Federation including the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT).
The Statement quoted Eric Elujekor, acting director, enforcement of SEC as saying that New Nation is an illegal fund manager that is not registered with the commission; but existed with the sole aim of deceiving the public.
According to Elujekor, SEC had previously sealed off some offices of the company in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Sokoto in the past.
“It is a company that has so many offices. When we got knowledge of what they say they want to do, we invited the person in charge to tell us what he was doing. He came here and told us that he had 21 pillars and that was the term he used. And those pillars represent a project that they intend to do and all these pillars are under a conglomerate they called New Nation.
“What he said is that at the end of the day when they are able to get people to participate in these pillars, Nigeria will be a New Nation. All the pillars are operating under different names like Women In oil which is a limited liability company on its own, another is called Global Defender which is a limited liability company we have Grey and Strong which is also a limited liability company,” Elujekor said.
The Ag director, enforcement at Nigeria’s SEC affirmed that the exercise was carried out to ensure that no activity would take place in their premises again.
He further affirmed that this is an opportunity to inform the general public to be wary of such organizations and not part with their hard earned money to scammers.
He advised the investing public to seek and get information from the SEC offices in the zones, the SEC website (www.sec.gov.ng) or any stock broking firm nearest to them.
“If you want to make an investment in the capital market, you want to put in your money maybe with a fund manager, first of all you have to find out from SEC, you do not need to physically come to SEC to find out if these fund managers are registered by the commission who has the power to register fund managers in the capital market. You can do that by going to the SEC website where you have market operators, click on it and then just enter the name of the company to find out whether it is listed as one of the registered fund managers by the commission,” he said.
Elujekor said this is a message to operators that the commission has zero tolerance for illegal operators, ‘’anytime SEC receives information on their activities, it would not hesitate to seal off their premises and hand over the operators to the relevant authorities for prosecution,’’ he affirmed.
As earlier reported, SEC in 2013 sealed off the premises of Women in Oil following a newspaper report that President Goodluck Jonathan had not approved any Scheme for the advancement of women in oil.
