Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has requested the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Federal Government to work on investors’ confidence, especially foreign investors as a way gaining back the loss confidence in the Nigeria’s stocks market system.
The former president declared that Nigeria needs all-encompassing economic parameters to rebound the ailing economy which includes building investors’ confidence in stocks marketing system, saying the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has a vital role to play in ensuring bearish sentiments do not always have a place in Nigerian stocks market.
Speaking while receiving Mounir Gwarzo, director general, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at his Presidential Hilltop mansion in Abeokuta on Thursday, Obasanjo noted that the present economic recession could only be fought successfully if confidence, stability, credibility and transparency could be guaranteed at the stocks market.
He said, “When we are in a situation we are now, situation of recession, I think it must be clear to all of us that we must do something quickly to get us out of recession, and there is no doubt that your own area of activity has a key role to play. You have to work on investment, you have to look for fund.
“Our children should start to learn and understand the working of Stocks market. In the Military, we are specially trained to know much about Stocks market and Stocks exchange. It is important that our children should understand and know it.
“We must also try to create confidence in market system generally and in the Stocks market. Over the years, many people have lost confidence in Stocks market. A man who was a billionaire yesterday, has become a millionaire now, and a millionaire yesterday, has now become ‘thousandnaire’.
“What we need to rebuild our economy through building confidence, stability, credibility and transparency in the market system generally.”
Responding, Mounir Gwarzo, director general, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosed that the Commission was in Abeokuta in continuation of Financial Literacy and Quiz Competition in Primary and Secondary school levels as part of effort to inculcate financial culture in the young ones.
He said, “One of the things we are doing now, the Financial Literacy, to inculcate the culture of financial knowledge at the Primary and Secondary school levels, and that is why we are in Abeokuta, we have also been implementing the initiatives within the master plan, we did the electronic dividends. It is something that has been ongoing for quite a while.
“The corporate governance scorecard that we have launched, we have done a lot. So that our children will grow up to understand the financial market, and you can’t divorce financial market from the economy, it is very important for the people at young age to know the importance of financial market and what the economy is all about.”
Speaking on what the Commission is doing to develop financial market studies into an academic course in the Nigerian universities, Gwarzo said that diploma and degree courses would soon be offered in various universities in the country for better knowledge of activities of the financial market.
“The starting point is to understand financial market, both the banking side and financial market side. Our target as we go along, in the next three to four years, we want to see that our universities graduate students, specialising in financial market. What happens now is that anybody that reads finance, you did little bit of financial market.
“But, we want to expand the scope to ensure that we have certificate, diploma and degree in financial market”, he concluded.
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