SEC unveils new guidelines for collective investment scheme
As NSE lists Briclinks Africa N10m shares on Growth Board
THE Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC), has released general rules for Collective Investment Schemes, prescribing that all units/ securities of a collective investment scheme shall be registered by the Commission.
The rule, which is on the Commission’s website, also states that all units/ securities subject to registration may be offered through the following methods: offer for subscription; offer for sale; and units/ securities of a collective investment scheme may be registered by way of a shelf registration.
Shelf registration is a filing undertaken by issuers intending to access the market in the near future. It permits issuers to disclose certain information in a core disclosure document that is updated on a regular basis
According to the Commission, in the case of Shelf Registration, some provisions shall be applicable and they include: the value of the shelf programme shall not be less than N5 billion.
An issuer may issue, offer or purchase, or make an invitation to subscribe for or purchase units under a shelf registration where at the time of the issue, offer or invitation, there is in force a shelf prospectus as updated by a supplementary shelf prospectus, both of which have been registered by the Commission.
Other provisions are that a shelf prospectus shall be subject to renewal every three years from the date of its issue. A shelf prospectus shall— comply with the general form and contents of a prospectus as set out in these rules and regulations; and state that the Shelf Prospectus has been registered by the Commission. It shall also state that the registration of the Shelf Prospectus and Supplementary Shelf Prospectus shall not be taken to be that the Commission endorses or recommends the securities or assumes responsibility for the correctness of any statements made or opinions or reports expressed therein.
Furthermore, the shelf registration prospectus should contain a statement that no units will be allotted or issued on the basis of the Shelf prospectus read together with any supplementary shelf prospectus later than three years after the date of the issue of the Shelf Prospectus. Other requirements are on the SEC official website.
Meanwhile, efforts by the NSE to attract SMES to the Exchange yielded reasonable results with the listing by introduction of 10 million ordinary shares of
1.00 each at 6.26 per share in the name of Briclinks Africa Plc on the Growth Board.
According to the NSE, the listing was commemorated with a digital Closing Gong ceremony where the Chief Executive Officer, Briclinks Africa, Mohammed Buhari, had the honour of bringing the day’s trading to an end. Speaking, the Chief Executive Officer, NSE, Oscar N. Onyema, said: “We are delighted to welcome Briclinks Africa Plc to The Exchange.
T HEestablishment of N2billion Rabelat Entrepreneurship Centre for Animal Husbandry ( RECAH) in Ilorin, Kwara State, is expected to improve the internally generated revenue ( IGR) of the state as well as create over 50,000 jobs.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, made this known, Tuesday, while assuring investors of government’s support for growth of their businesses.
Adebayo spoke while addressing a delegation of Daniel Franco Institute, who visited him to seek support in the setting up of the centre. He stressed that the government would continue to do its best to make the country a safe destination for investors. He said the Ministry has the mandate of facilitating the development of viable nonoil commodities and food production, stressing the importance for the government to engage the institute to deliberate on the nature of strategic partnership and the level of collaboration expected.
Managing Director of Rabelat Nigeria, Dr. Ahmed Raji, said RECAH was structured to run both training and commercial outfits for animal husbandry.
According to him, the training arm will focus on the basic studies in animal husbandry and entrepreneurship, providing the platform for trainees to select, breed, care- for, process and market livestock.
He put the cost of the project at N2 billion, stressing that the amount will be spent on the construction of administration block and lecture halls, hostel, purchase of teaching aids and construction of facilities.
He listed the benefits of RECHA to include aiding and fast- tracking the development of agribusiness in the country, creation of 50,000 jobs and solving the problem of herdsmen- farmers clashes.
Raji solicited the support of the minister towards the setting up of the institute, noting that the project would enhance the growth of agriculture.
EXPERTS in the health sector have blamed the leadership of the country for the continuous threat of infectious diseases ravaging the country.
They stressed that the inability of the country to tackle the infectious diseases, ranging from cholera, Lassa fever,
Ebola and the COVID- 19, among other epidemics, rests on the lack of commitment on the part of the leadership to address issues affecting its containment by building institutions, development of vaccines, training of capacities, putting confidence in the country’s scientists and products.
Speaking at the Pat Utomi’s CVL series via a webinar, the Director General, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control ( NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, said the country’s challenge is a result of leadership’s lack of investment in epidemic preparedness and response, as they rather concentrate on big infrastructure projects in other sectors that produce big visible political capital to leaders in government.
He said they were of the impression that the epidemic would come and go and then the whole country will go back to business as usual.
“There is a very high level of policy inconsistency at the leadership. We understand the challenges of our political structure. We have always tried to educate our leaders on the threat of infectious diseases and it always seems like a very hypothetical threat. It is very difficult to use our work for political capital because when you succeed by preventing events, it is very difficult to show success. We all try to pay for insurance policy, but it is always like a painful expense we try to put off and hope doesn’t come to us,” he said.
Ihekweazu lamented that Nigeria, for the past 60 years, has not invested in building the type of institutions needed to tackle infectious diseases, with no private sector incentive given to the health sector just like the oil sector and other business capital- making sector.
He said with the pandemic ravaging the world, Nigeria is years away from science and vaccine manufacturing, as it is an extremely complex process.
“If you look at the big countries of the world, they all have big science institutions that work quietly in the background, producing the research and human resources that are deployed to emergency when they are needed, but we simply don’t have that in Nigeria, although we have started building on that at the NCDC from a very low base,” Ihekweazu said.
He said Nigerians don’t celebrate her scientists and scientific institutions and at the end, they are expected to perform miracles when epidemic arises.
“If people don’t understand how treatment of vaccine is defined or accepted to be effective, then you find people coming up with all insinuations on why we are not using the cure from Madagascar, chloroquine, which worked for some and didn’t work for others,” he said.
Professor of Virology and pioneer Vice Chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Oyewale Tomori, said Nigeria has abandoned good governance, which plays a critical role in the severity of the infectious diseases.
He said the government only focuses on the oil sector, leaving other sectors to survive on their own, adding that the health and education sector should be given utmost priority if we must overcome the pandemic and other infectious disease outbreaks.
“We have not made vaccine for other diseases in the country like LASSA Fever, which is over 50 years now, because the effect on the economy has not been that important, just like the COVID- 19. This is a consistent and persistent disruption to the economy and the government needs to act now,” he said.
Tomori also emphasised the need for capacity building, adding that Nigerian scientists do not have the capacity and right language to inform people of the relevance of tackling infectious disease critically.
“It is for us as scientists to prove that it is not what we are bringing back to the table, but what we will take away if the disease comes. All of the things you have built up in years, it requires one disease to wipe all those things out,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges of containing Lassa fever for over 50 years, Prof. Sylvanus Okegbeni said the disease had been prevalent in the human environment with many deaths recorded, including the health workers whose deaths were recorded yearly as of 2006.
He said until the country acts swiftly and strongly against Lassa fever by setting up institutions on infectious diseases, as well as work with local and international partners, the disease will continue to take the lives of not only the people in communities, but also the health worker, which he said could be disastrous.
Okegbeni said while the institutions are working with the World Health Organisation ( WHO) to address the development of Lassa fever vaccines, the issue of politics was limiting all efforts at addressing the infectious disease control, adding that the vaccine production would take many years before it could be developed.
He lamented that the laboratory diagnosis and case management, which are important pillars for infectious disease control, need to be strong, adding that the government had neglected setting up institutions to address the issue.
“Lessons must be learnt now so that we can fundamentally build up structures to ensure infectious diseases do not catch us grappling. The most important is the human capacity development. Once we develop the human capacity and provide structures and resources, then we can do well like any other country of the world,” he said.
Former Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Dr. Jide Idris, said looking at the lessons from the case of Ebola, it has been discovered that the issue of leadership is key and is one of the problems the country is facing, adding that lack of support from the government has put Nigeria in the situation it is facing right now.
He said as a country with a high population, the government needs to be ready for emergencies and plan against such by setting up institutions and structures to contain any form of infectious disease.
Idris also emphasised on the need to develop capacity and competence. “Why can’t we support local capacities in structures to aid testing? You must protect your citizens from infectious diseases. We need to start looking at the gaps we have now and start building on the capabilities for solutions to happen,” he said.
The Director General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control ( NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, lamented that not involving the right stakeholders in developing solutions to address the issues of infectious diseases is one of the reasons Nigeria is facing challenges in combating these epidemic/ pandemic.
“Our food preservation processes is very poor and that is part of the reasons we have these infectious diseases ravaging our society and until we bring everybody together to play their part, we will not address the issue.
“We also have a leadership problem, if the government does not see that it is supposed to be a round table of the concerned and not the politicians, we will have a lot of problems to solve,” she said.
President, African Organisation for Research and Training in Cancer, ( AORTC), Dr. Bello Abubakar Mohammed, said it is crucial to look back at history and trace the value of leadership and where the country got it all wrong, noting that if this is not done, there is no way the country can move forward and ever be able to achieve positive results in containing infectious diseases.
He said pandemic could consume anybody at any place,
FOR a nation with over 65 per cent young population, one of the greatest challenges confronting the country is providing quality education to her teeming youths. At every level of learning, from primary to tertiary, there are hurdles before Nigeria can meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal ( SDG) 4, which entails inclusive and equitable quality education, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030. Available data showed that between 2010 and 2015, only 26 per cent of the 10 million applicants to Nigerian tertiary institutions gained admission. At least, one million students seeking admission through the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board ( JAMB), every year have failed to get slots, as the system cannot admit more than 600,000 in any given year. For 2016, a total of 1,589,175 registered, just as 1,736,571; 1,662,762; 1, 816, 254; and 1, 900,000 registered in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively. This means that in the last five years, over one million applicants per year failed to gain admission into tertiary institutions.
The number of universities, including private and publicly owned is 171. While federal universities are 44, states have 48 and privately owned are 99. When compared with countries like India’s 4,354, United States 3,228, China’s 2,596, Indonesia’s 2,304 and Brazil’s 1, 335; analysts emphasised that the number of universities in the country, compared to its population, is grossly inadequate.
The new move by the Federal Government to create additional 20 private universities, which was announced last Wednesday, has generated mixed reactions from stakeholders. The minister of education, Adamu Adamu, who made the announcement, said nine of the universities are located in North Central, three in South- South, two in South east, five in the North west and one in South west.
Former Rector of the Institute of Management and Technology ( IMT), Enugu, Prof Mike Iloeje has blamed the continued shift in the management of university education by the Federal Government to private hands, saying the trend had continued to affect quality, competition, research and output in the educational sector. Iloeje stated that government, having realised its inability to meet citizens’ demand for access to university education, coupled with its unwillingness to increase funding of public universities; had resorted to passing the buck to the private sector.
“This development has therefore resulted in a roaring increase in the number of private universities, from only two in 1999 to 75 in 2019; and 99 as of February 2021.” Iloeje argued that an immediate result of the proliferation is low quality. To start with, he noted that these universities are poorly staffed and poorly equipped.
He said, ” Facilities are grossly inadequate; basic equipment, laboratory and library facilities are lacking. Their graduates are poorly trained. Their skills- base is shallow, pathetic and inadequate to meet demands of the technologically driven labour market. In the various fields of engineering, science and technology, these graduates are found critically unsuitable to be utilised immediately upon graduation. Many of them have to undergo further tutelage and training, for up to one additional year, before their employers can utilise them in their laboratories and on facto
ry floors.
“Regrettably, available evidence confirms the fact that public universities have increased more quickly than the Nigerian economy can carry. Despite this scenario, some still advocate establishment of more institutions, when it is clear that government lacks the capacity to properly fund them.”
Taking an holistic review on how the National University Commission’s ( NUC) licensed universities have increased in number, their enrollments, academic staff and funding, the erstwhile rector said the pitiable downside is that the increase in the number of universities and in student enrollment have not been matched with commensurate funding.
He said that the proliferation of private universities has increased competition for space in public universities, as according to him, the NUC data of July 10, 2018, indicated that of the total students’ population of two million; undergraduate enrollment was 1.7 million and postgraduate was 300, 000, adding that out of the figure, 62 per cent were enrolled in federal universities, 33 per cent in states and five per cent in private universities.
“These numbers show the obviously low absorptive capacity of Nigerian universities and also the inadequacy in the educational preparedness of prospective applicants,” he argued.
Dr Gbenga Jegede of Ekiti State University ( EKSU) said the most important issue is the question of quality, sustainability and funding. He reminded that quality couldn’t be compromised because if the standard of the universities are low, it would affect the quality of graduates produced, and ultimately affect the economy of the country.”
On the other hand, Wole Balogun, a lecturer at the Federal University Oye Ekiti ( FUOYE), said the approval of 20 new universities at this time came as a shock to many.
“This is because this is the same government that has been giving excuses for not being able to properly fund existing public universities. So, one wonders why the same government would approve the establishment of new universities?
While there is a huge market for university education in Nigeria as evidenced in the skyrocketing number of candidates who applied to study in tertiary institutions annually, Balogun lamented that poor management of entrepreneurship potentials of public universities by the Federal Government has been the only clog in the wheel of progress.
He appealed to the government to ensure that it does not just set up the universities, but also provide funds to revitalise them.
Another lecturer, who preferred anonymity said the approval of 20 new private universities, is a step in the right direction. He said the existence of these institutions would create both admission opportunities for students and employment opportunities for others. “I will advise government to support these institutions by giving them both financial and moral support. Government can also help by regulating policy decisions as most of them are only thinking about profit instead of quality services.
Dr Sola Balogun of the Department of Theatre Arts, FUOYE, was of the view that the approval of 20 private universities at this time is a pointer to the inconsistency on the part of the Federal Government as far as tertiary education is concerned in Nigeria. “The same government is yet to fulfill its promises to ASUU the umbrella association of lecturers in public institutions, who are still being owed arrears of their salaries while the issue of Earned Academic Allowance ( EAA) is yet to be resolved. This showed that Federal Government is trying to kill public universities so that the newly established private ones can thrive. Unfortunately, those who would be at the receiving end are Nigerian masses and their wards who may not be able to afford fees being charged by the private universities.
Former Deputy Vice Chancellor ( Academics), Bayero University, Kano, ( BUK), Prof. Idris Adamu Tanko advocated strict adherence to minimum academic standard in running the newly licensed private universities. Although, the Professor of Geography was not against proliferation of private universities, citing increasing demand for admission and limited carrying capacity of public universities, he stressed the need for regulators to ensure availability of human and material resources at the new institutions before final take- off.
Prof Tanko noted that both existing public and private universities in the country are in dire need of structural upgrade, reevaluation of curriculum and retraining of academic staff to meet modern trends. Asked whether consideration should be placed on more universities or producing technically useful graduates, Tanko reminded that universities are expected to produce technically useful graduates at all times, adding that what is most essential is to see that universities have adequate provision for human and material resources that can adequately meet the aspirations of providing the technical skills and know- how.
“These are obviously not adequate. Indeed that’s always why trade unions in universities are at loggerheads with governments. Surely all our universities are lagging behind in terms of manpower, enrolments and infrastructure; the older institutions have crisis of outdated and archaic resources, members of staff are not adequately trained to meet contemporary global and local challenges. “Considering the size of our population and available spaces Tanko said “the country obviously needs more universities.”
A former Head of Department of Mathematics, University of Ibadan ( UI) Prof. Ezekiel Olusola Ayoola, accused government of playing politics by licensing more private universities when existing ones are not well funded. Ayoola said government has failed to realise that university education anywhere in the world, is a capital- intensive project, which must involve massive infusion of both material and human capital for positive results. He noted that existing private universities are still struggling to attract students, as prospective students and parents still prefer old generation public schools. He believed that government ought to develop existing public institutions so as to attract foreign students.
On her part, Prof. Victoria Adetunji of University of Ibadan stated that the demand for university education is very high, so the call for more universities is justifiable. She however cautioned that the universities are well equipped to produce technically sound and worthy graduates.
Public affairs analyst and ace- broadcaster, Mr. Tony Abolo said the establishment of new universities across the country would throw up competition in terms of tuition and pricing for intakes. Abolo said the era of private universities charging exorbitant tuition may soon be history with the establishment of new universities.
He noted that government should as a matter of policy ensure that most of the private universities focus on specialisation to rejig the country’s education system like in the United States, where different universities are known for their flagship programmes either for Bachelor, Masters, Doctorate and Post- doctoral programmes.
Abolo added that world- class universities have done excellently in various specialisations for which it is popularly known. He said same is expected of private universities as the number increases, calling on stakeholders particularly the town and gown to break new grounds.
Regrettably, available evidence confirms the fact that public universities have increased more quickly than the Nigerian economy can carry. Despite this scenario, some still advocate establishment of more institutions, when it is clear that government lacks the capacity to properly fund them.