SEC promotes investor education, trains journalists on capital market

The Securities and Ex¬change Commission (SEC) is sponsoring seven journalists on train¬ing both in Nigeria and the United States of America, a gesture by the commission in redemption of the 2012 and 2013 prizes to winners of the SEC essay competition.
This move is in pursu¬ance of SEC objective to strengthen interest in read¬ing and writing about the capital markets on the part of professional journalists and to engender the spill-over consequence of such enhanced interest in the wider society.
Already, two of the jour¬nalists have concluded their training in Business Writing and Communication Skills at Financial Institutions Train¬ing Centre (FITC) in Lagos while arrangements have been concluded for the re¬maining five to proceed to the International Law Insti¬tute in Washington DC for one and two weeks training this October.
Out of the seven journal¬ists, three were winners in the 2012 edition. They are Iheanyi Nwachukwu of BusinessDay; Taofeek Sala¬ko of the Nation, and Chris Ugwu, then of Leadership.
While the winners in the 2013 editions are Teslim Shitta-Bey of Business Hall¬mark; Patrick Atuanya of BusinessDay; Sule Teliat Balogun of BusinessDay and Eromosele Abiodun of ThisDay.
The essay competition is part of SEC’s capacity build¬ing for the media industry and also investor education and has become a signature event of the commission which is targeted at busi¬ness, financial and capital market journalists.
The entries for the 2014 essay competition will soon commence and will be an opportunity for more jour¬nalists to participate.
The Securities and Ex¬change Commission (SEC) was established in 1979 as the apex regulator of the Nigerian capital market. It is a Federal Government statutory body supervised by the Federal Ministry of Finance.
Its activities are cur¬rently governed by the Investments and Securities Act (ISA) 2007. The SEC has the overarching mandate of investor protection, ensur¬ing orderly and equitable dealings in securities, de¬veloping the market and shielding it from all forms of abuses.