LIVING COLLAGE THISLIFE

She was not forced into reading law but was inspired by a father who was a Judge, himself. Called to bar in 1978, Dr. Ngozi Chianakwalam, has been in the judiciary for decades. She was once the Chief Judge in Abia State and a very successful one at that. Now the Solicitor General and Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST), she has done so well as a woman and with so much workloads on her and a family to carter for, she still remains very glamorous and attractive. Being at the helm of a Tribunal acclaimed first of its kind in Africa, she speaks with Mary Ekah on the Tribunal’s agenda, what it hopes to achieve, what happens to those who go against the laws of the Capital Market and how her tribunal has rescued those who fall victims to the antics of the Capital Market and so on This seems to be the first time we have such Tribunal in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, what is your mandates?

The Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST) adjudicates on Capital Market cases. These are cases arising from shares, Stockbrokers, Nigerian Stock Exchange, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and so on. You know that in the regular court, cases take a very long while, and cases concerning the capital market need to be decided timely because you know shares are volatile. Matters concerning the capital market have to be decided very expeditiously. At a point in time, the Federal Government felt that there was need to look at what could be done and they set up a panel known as the Odife panel. And the Odife panel, after extensive investigation, came up with a report and one of the recommendations on the report was to set up a tribunal different from the regular courts to handle capital market cases. That was how the Investments and Securities Tribunal came to be. It took off in the year 2002.

What have been the Landmark cases since you started?

We have quite a number of Landmark cases. A lot of people have been defrauded in the capital market and many have cried to the grave without getting justice while many are just angry at the system and yet do not know where they could take their complaints to, oblivious of the fact that there is actually a court that can simply stand as their defender. Many investors lose their money, lots of money running into millions either through fraudulent practices by bankers or stockbrokers. As a result, there is a law that makes provision for the setting up of the investor’s protection fund. A provision was made for that fund in the Investment and Securities Act but nothing was done about it until the Tribunal delivered a judgment and gave the Nigerian Stock exchange Commission a mandate and a time frame within which to set up the Fund. They were forced to set up the fund and fortunately the inauguration of the committee for the fund took place last year. That is one of the landmark cases and there are quite a number of them in different areas.

At what point, did you come into the Tribunal?

I came into the tribunal in February 2013. When I came in I met quite a number of challenges. The first was that we did not have a befitting office at the headquarters and even at the zonal offices. They were and still rented apartments and like you know many landlords don’t like to renovate their buildings. Where we were staying in Abuja was not good enough, I wouldn’t want to call it an eyesore. So, my ambition was to get us a befitting place because we are a world class Tribunal. The United States Securities and Exchange Tribunal does not even have our kind of Tribunal and when we were there in 2013 to attend a programme with over 80 countries the officials in attendance, there they commended us and asked others to emulate us, saying Nigeria is a trailblazer for setting up such a tribunal. So if we are a world class Tribunal, we should also have a befitting environment because like I envisaged, various countries in Africa should even come and borrow a leaf from us. So we needed a good environment so that at least when we have visitors both from within and outside the country, they should be able to see a world-class office we operate in. The second challenge was fund. Normally, we are funded from the Federal government budgetary allocations but with the dwindling economy, budgetary allocations have been falling and falling over the years. So there wasn’t much to take care of the basic needs of the Tribunal but we have always been asking for funding from the capital market because the other major players in the market, like the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Securities and Exchange Commission, Central Security Clearing System, all get funded from proceeds of the transaction fees. They charge one per cent for every transaction and we are just asking for only 10 percent of that one per cent. It was a fight and I am happy to say that eventually, the coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, last year directed SEC to look into it holistically and make sure that we get funding. I am also happy to say that as at last year an order was made for us to get funding, even though there is still some hiccups and resistance here and there. Another major challenge was that the staff had not had promotion since 2011; there was a little rumble of industrial unrest when I came in and so I begged them to allow me to settle down first. I am happy to say that we conducted promotion exams last year and then we got approval from