The Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, has stressed the need for Nigerians to embrace the capital market in order to fight poverty.


Professor Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke

Speaking at the Lagos Island Club Business Luncheon on Thursday, she said the advice became imperative because of the wealth prospects inherent in the nation’s capital market.

She cited the huge listing of companies’ shares, new investment products and regional expansion and the nation’s investment-friendly legislation and socio-political environment as necessary for wealth creation.
She said the more than N1.40tn raised through the capital market in 2006 and N1.46tn worth of new issues approved so far in the first 11 months of this year, clearly showed the contributions of the exchange to the nation’s economy.

Okereke-Onyiuke said that the market capitalisation of the 209 listed companies appreciated to N10.31tn or $87.65m in November, compared to the opening capitalisation of N5.12tn or $40.32bn recorded in January.
In the same vein, the all-share index, which measures the direction of the market, grew by 63 per cent to about 54,189.92 points in November as against the 33,189.30 points achieved in 2006.

According to her, the impact of the consolidation of the banking sector and recent awareness of Nigerians and foreigners on the returns from the market leveraged traded volume of shares as at November to 129 billion shares, up from 36.7 billion traded in the whole of the preceding year. In value terms, investors in the 11 months committed N1.921tn compared with N470.25bn recorded in the previous year.

While the director-general did not provide the value of returns to investors in the last 11 months of 2007, she said that the volume traded so far in the year was in excess of the volume of shares traded in the whole of 2006.She commended the club for the commitment of its members to nation building. She urged them to use the same platform to inform Nigerians on the potential of the capital market.