Nigeria Content Online

The Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE) yesterday officially commissioned a Contact Centre to
improve its interface with capital market investors, as the world
celebrates Consumers’ Rights Day.

Located on the 13th
floor of the NSE’s building, the Contact Centre is a facility that
allows interface of information between the Exchange and investors, as
well as other market operators.

Emmanuel Ikazoboh,
interim administrator of the NSE, said, “Despite the dwindling income
of the Exchange, we have gone this far to improve on the communication
between us and our investors because we know the importance of
information to the growth and development of the market.

“The market, we
know, is information driven; hence, nothing would be spared in our
desire to further bridge information gap between us and the investors
on our Exchange,” Mr. Ikazoboh said.

He said investors
are expected to phone in to make enquires on important issues about the
market as they affect them from 7:45 am to 6:00 pm Monday to Friday on
07002255673. Callers are free to use any of the three major Nigerian
languages of Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba to make enquires or launch
complaints.

“Within 24 to 48
hours, you (customers) will be aware that efforts are been made to
respond to their enquiries. We may not have the answer at hand, but at
least you will know that action is been taken,” he added.

When our reporter
put a call to the number yesterday, the call went through, even though
it terminated before much information could be exchanged.

Mr. Ikazoboh said
there are other things that the Exchange is trying to put in place to
win back investors’ confidence. However, he said, “We thought by today
(Tuesday) we are going to have price kickers around the building.
Unfortunately, most of the items are stock in the port. But we’ve been
given a concrete assurance that by the 25th March, it will be
everywhere in the building.

“We are also going
to change the kicker in our trading room to be able to give real-time
online performances of each of the companies that are listed in our
Exchange,” he further said.

No account yet

Asked how much it
cost the NSE to set up the Contact Centre, Mr. Ikazoboh said, “I will
ask the account department because I don’t have the figures with me
now. Once the account department is able to collate everything, I’ll
pass that to the public.”

He, however, assured that his administration was “very prudent” in managing the cost.

At the event,
Arunma Oteh, director general, Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), said, “We are delighted at this initiative. The SEC believes
that there will be no capital market without the investors. It is
therefore, important that we continue to enhance investors’
confidence.”

Ms. Oteh said the
commissioning of the Contact Centre is also significant because “it is
happening on a day that all over the world consumers’ rights are being
celebrated and consumers are being appreciated. We at SEC believe that
if we are able to protect investors, our market will flourish and truly
be transformed for our country.”

Bisi Onipede, one
of the supervisors at the Contact Centre, said several calls have been
made by investors to the Contact Centre since operation began recently.

Ms. Onipede said,
“We’ve had people calling to know whether some stockbroking firms have
been suspended, reinstated, or not. We’ve had people calling to know
about the status of their shares; dividends; branch location of the
NSE; how they can log on to our website; how they can be stockbrokers;
etc.”

She said calls have
been received from Nigerian investors in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba
languages, adding that people have also been calling from French
speaking countries, South Africa, Europe, and America.

Olu Odejimi, the
spokesperson for stockbrokers, who is also the chief executive officer
of Clearview Investment Limited, a stockbroking firm, said the Contact
Centre is an initiative which will “promote the business of
stockbrokers,” adding that it will help the investing public not to
rely only on stockbrokers to get good information about the market.

Mr. Odejimi, who is
the oldest stockbroker at the NSE with 38 years experience, said
although stockbrokers are currently facing hard times, the initial
suspicion that Ms. Oteh might be operating an undisclosed agenda has
been corrected.

“There is order now in the market,” he said, adding that “change is
the only thing that is permanent,” while charging Ms. Oteh to “go on
and change everything as long as it is for our good.”