• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Oscar Onyema emerges Capital Market Man of the Year 2020

Oscar-Onyema

Oscar Onyema, CEO, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), has emerged Capital Market Man of the year, 2020.

In a survey carried out by BusinessDay, Fund Managers, Stockbrokers, Market analysts and other market stakeholders gave various reasons for choosing the NSE CEO as Capital Market Man of the year 2020.

In the survey, BusinessDay posed the question: Who would you choose as Capital Market Man (Regulator) of the year 2020 and why? 70 percent of the respondents gave it to Oscar Onyema. Of this 70 percent, many picked the NSE CEO for piloting the affairs of the NSE and ensuring it ranked the world best in 2020 in terms of returns.

The efforts of the NSE under Onyema in the actualisation of the NSE demutualisation also helped Onyema’s choice.

The NSE recently announced chief executives for emerging entities.They are group chief executive officer, Oscar Onyema; Nigerian Exchange Limited CEO, Temi Popoola; and NGX Regulation Limited CEO, Tinuade Awe.

The proactive measures taken by the NSE that contributed significantly to the early recovery of the market soon after a near crash at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic also gave Onyema the edge.

In the wake of the pandemic in March, the market lost 18 percent, a development that put market operators and investors on the edge. But the market soon staged a rebound in May, helped by in-built structures put in place by the NSE.

The resilience the market demonstrated during the EndSARS protest was traced partly to the NSE remote trading facility, which allowed uninterrupted trading during a period of crisis, and respondents took accounts of this in picking Onyema.

Also helping Onyems’s choice was the relative increase in the participation of retail investors in the market in 2020, which was attributed to the effective capital market literacy embarked upon by the NSE.

Onyema was also credited with supporting the SEC and playing a pivotal role in setting up the NG Clearing Limited, a central counterparty clearing house for the Nigerian financial market.

Coming second to Onyema as Capital Market Man of the year 2020 was former DG, SEC, Mary Uduk, for putting in place rules like guidelines for trading of Crypto Assets in Nigeria.

Koko Bola Onadele, managing director/CEO, FMDQ OTC plc, was also a contender as a regulator Capital Market Man of 2020 for being able to drive the volume and value of the bond market higher in 2020 than the previous year.