Nigeria Content Online

Barring journalists from covering the daily activities of the
Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) will further dampens investors’ confidence, some
market operators at the Exchange have said.

Boniface Okezie, the National Chairman of the Progressive
Shareholders Association of Nigeria, said the NSE’s decision is not good for
the market because it negates the issue of transparency which the Exchange
“claims to be preaching”.

“It is an illegal act and it is totally not acceptable because
that is not the norm in Stock Exchanges around the world,” Mr Okezie said.

“The NSE gallery was built to allow investors and journalists
have access to the trading floor and witness daily transactions. This enables
them to make investment decision and report such while trading is going on. The
Stock Exchange is not a secret court where you bar the media from having first
hand information. The exchange has always been open since inception till the
days of the immediate past head. I think they have something to hide,” he said.

He added that the NSE is a public domain which was why the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) deems it fit to remove the director
general for the interest of the general public.

“Strange declaration”

Femi Awoyemi, the chief executive officer of Proshare Nigeria
Limited, an investment advisory firm, said the move is unusual.

“This is a strange declaration from a SEC driven NSE which
actively cultivated the press on the serious and non-essential happenings at
the NSE.” Mr Awoyemi said the action is not only ludicrous but a clear signal
that the NSE “might have shut itself in the foot.” He added that the Exchange,
according to the SEC when it took over in the public interest, is an
organisation whose affairs cannot be shielded as a private entity.

“This can and should be seen as an attempt to censure
disclosures that have emerged about internal workings of the
regulator-operator. SEC released the table and either directly or indirectly
released sensitive internal information to select media houses always,” he
said.

“It simply defies logic that they would blame information
platforms about saying too much – that is giving too much credit to a group of
which some has sold their soul for cash. This is the act of a flip flop
administration.”

The NSE’s spokesperson, Sola Oni, had said at the weekend that
journalists will no longer be allowed at the Exchange, while those seeking to
make enquiries from relevant Exchange’s staff are to apply and wait for
adequate clearance.

Mr. Oni said it was a corporate decision aimed at raising the Nigerian
market to world standards.