Nigeria Content Online

After weeks and
months of something akin to a bloodbath in the Stock Exchange, a
process that was unravelled with the help of diligent, objective
newspaper reporting across the board, it is understandable that the new
leadership wants to avoid the banana peels that tripped its
predecessors.

However, barring
journalists from covering the daily activities of the Exchange, as the
executive of the NSE announced two weeks ago, is plainly pig-headed and
certain to make all but the most crooked investors shy away from the
market. According to reports of this revolutionary new way of running a
stock exchange, capital market journalists would no longer be allowed
to observe trading activities.

It appears now
that bourse officials, following understandable public outcry, are
backing carefully away from this misguided notion that secrecy is the
best way to run an Exchange. That they even thought of it at all is
certainly a cause for concern.

The major issue
that the Exchange now faces, as prices continue to plummet, is one of
confidence: specifically, investor confidence in the activities of the
Exchange and how its leaders are managing its affairs. Surely, given
the upheaval-and steep losses-in the market over the past two years, it
makes little sense to exacerbate investor fears and foster a mood that
leads many to wonder what exactly, if anything, anyone is trying to
cover up.

As the National
Chairman of an investor advocacy group called the Progressive
Shareholders Association of Nigeria rightly notes, the NSE’s decision
is not good for the market because it negates the canon of
transparency, which is the lifeblood of any Exchange and which the NSE
“claims to be preaching”.

Beyond the general
‘global practice’ given as justification for this abrupt proposition,
it is curious that there is no particular rationale given for it or
indeed any indication of how allowing journalists in the gallery has
impeded the growth or functioning of the Exchange in the past.

Indeed, when the
pioneers of the Exchange built a gallery to allow investors and
journalists have access to the trading floor and witness daily
transactions, there was utility to it: especially one that aids a
normally disengaged public to become more familiar, and presumably more
comfortable, in a yet evolving financial system. The gallery was opened
in recognition of the fact that the Exchange is not like the chamber of
the Supreme Court. I It is a public domain, an open market. Therefore
it stands to reason that if its administrators are working in the
public’s best interest, there would be no need to shut out the press,
and by extension the public.

It is particularly
shocking that the new leadership of the NSE should be so tone deaf. The
Exchange has been exposed in the past couple of years, as details of
insider dealing, back room brawls, criminal activity and just plain
theft came spilling out in the open, as a place where the ordinary
investor had a high likelihood of being swindled by insiders. Tales of
so-called markets makers, and of collusion among the high and mighty to
give themselves unfair advantage, came to define the activities of the
Exchange.

It was with
relief, therefore, that the public greeted the recent cleaning out of
the long-entrenched leadership of the NSE, in particular its director
general, Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke.

So this strange
and clumsy attempt to boot out the press was made even clumsier in the
manner in which it was to be implemented, with fiat and without
engagement with stakeholders.

Under the proposed
ban, journalists who file stories from the press centre in the Exchange
building would have had to relocate to business centres in the
vicinity. Also, capital market reporters who need clarification and
interviews on issues from NSE staff would have required something
called “adequate clearance”.

The Exchange will
now only invite the press to cover ‘important occasions’ such as
specific placements, presidential visits, and other activities. In
order words, the press will only be allowed in when the Exchange
believes the information to be passed is favourable to it and its
image. Disclosure of any other activity is essentially censured. It is
hard to see how this could have lead to investor confidence. We welcome
the decision of the exchange to back down and hope that in the future
it will be more mindful of the need to build confidence taking
decisions.