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We have had cause, in a previous editorial, to
call it the “stuck” exchange. Now we have the dubious honour of
contributing another description: the “candy floss” exchange.

All the while we assumed it was a place for
creating, trading and multiplying wealth, and generally advancing the
frontiers of the free market.

While the party lasted, the doors seemed open to
all and sundry. Nigerians fell over themselves to be a part of it,
pumping funds into the market. Wealth, as well as local and
international awards for profitable capitalism multiplied, as expected,
and there was much joy in the land. Wasn’t this, after all, the
exchange that put two Nigerians on the Forbes List?

Until we discovered, far too late, that what we
had on our hands all along was a candy floss party, full of fluff,
totally lacking in value. It wasn’t a stock exchange, it was a puppet
theatre, a gathering of magicians, who conjured figures out of thin air
with the same aplomb with which they made them vanish.

Presiding over this depraved organisation, which
showed no capacity for restraint and was voracious in its appetite for
stealing, was Ndidi Okereke-Onyiuke, The ‘crooked’ madam of Kakawa
Street, along with her senior officials, spared no effort in the raping
and pillaging of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

We are in possession of a copy of a forensic audit
(available to be downloaded from our website, 234NEXT.com) into the
affairs of the exchange under Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke. The audit was
commissioned by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and produced by
the law firm of Aluko Oyebode in conjunction with KPMG.

It is a sickening report. The recklessness with
which executives of the exchange paid out huge sums of money from its
administrative funds is matched only by the absurdity of what the funds
were spent on. It is, amongst other things, a tale of luxury tastes
that can only be acquired outside of a honest day’s job: lavish events,
expensive cars, Rolex watches, a yacht, even. The report also is a
treatise on the Manual of Creative Accounting.

One example, taken at random from several: N342
million paid to a front company owned in fact by the head of the
Corporate Affairs department of the exchange, to organise a Long
Service Award in 2008.

The name of the company (you will not find a more apt name): “Candy Floss Limited.”

Another example: N186 million spent buying 165
Rolex watches ostensibly for presentation to long-serving staff. At
least half of this money went to Candy Floss, and 92 of those watches
remain unaccounted for, as there is no evidence they were actually
purchased, to say nothing of giving them to anyone. Another N100
million paid to Candy Floss for the supply of cars, some of which have
never been seen by anyone.

The sum of N450 million was “reported” as overseas
travel expenditure in 2007, well in excess of the N60 million budgeted.
In 2008, the reported figure leaped to N615 million. The forensic audit
reveals that the actual amount expended – according to the books – was
N1.9 billion: that’s not a typo — the amount spent on foreign trips by
Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke’s gang, in the year of our Lord 2008, was
N1,900,000,000.00. By an act of creative accounting, N1.3 billion of
this “was reclassified under different expense description/classes.”
Indeed the report is a fascinating compendium of accounting tricks.

These are only a fraction of the report’s
findings. It also says that Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke paid herself more than
half a billion naira in productivity bonuses in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It
appears that, in between supervising public offers and raising funds
for Messrs Obasanjo and Obama (whether solicited or not,) she found
time to supervise a transformation of personal fortunes on several
fronts.

Laden with instances of over-invoicing, multiple
payments, gross breaches of financial guidelines, unaccounted-for
purchases, falsification of accounts, illegal sharing of funds,
flagrant disregard for budgets and expenditure limits – the report’s
contents are nightmarish.

But then again we have to acknowledge that they
are only nightmarish if you discount the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA)
report that nailed Bode George, or the several EFCC reports indicting
political office holders, now sadly gathering dust in unknown places.
After all, none of our law enforcement agencies, least of all the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has seen fit to haul in Mrs.
Okereke-Onyiuke and her cabal.

Acts of monumental corruption have ceased to be a
surprising phenomenon in our country. But that doesn’t make them any
less deserving of censure. Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke has a lot of questions
to answer. Before now she had been accused by Mr. Aliko Dangote, a
former president of the exchange, of mismanaging it to the point of
bankruptcy. Mr. Dangote, like many others associated with the exchange,
also has questions to answer.

In addition to Mr. Dangote, the Exchange council
was led by a long line of captains of industry, including Oba Otudeko.
They all need to tell us what they know, and when they knew it. This is
not the time to start screaming about ‘victimisation’ and ‘the antics
of enemies’.

This is not the time to start running around in
search of absurd court injunctions (which, admittedly, and with enough
cash on or under the table, are not all that hard to obtain.)

The facts are clear, unambiguous; and if anyone has contrary
information, we’ll be the first to provide them with a platform to
demonstrate it.