CAPITAL MARKET PROBE: FORMER NSE BOSS BLEW N186m ON ROLEX WATCHES.

The Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission Aruma Oteh on Monday said that people should be brought to book for their actions at the resumed hearing on the Near-Collapse of the Nigerian Capital Market by the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee led by Ibrahim El-Sud.

Oteh was emphatic that the commission sacked the former DG of the Nigerian Stock Exchange Prof Ndi Okereke Onyiuke and the entire management in 2010 because of fraudulent practices and weak corporate governance.

She said the former NSE Management purchased a Yacht for N37m was a clear example of “Missappropriating, false accounting”. She told the committee that the yacht was indicated in NSE book a year later as “a gift presented during its 2008 Long Service Award; Arunma Oteh also said the exchange spent a sum of N186m on the purchase of 165 Rolex wristwatched, supposedly as “gifts for awardees”. Oteh said only 73 were “actually presented to the awadees. The outstanding 92 Rolex watches valued at N99.5m remain unaccounted for.” She noted that “These were the kinds of financial imprudence that were perpetrated at the NSE.

These are serious allegations and I hope the former NSE boss Prof Ndi Okereke will respond to this in due time. What do you make of this issues coming out of the shores of the Nigerian Capital Market?