CSO faults SEC over Oando sanction

A Civil Society Organisation, Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch in Nigeria, has faulted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over its decision to penalise Oando PLC over alleged infractions.

SEC had recently directed Oando Plc to suspend its Annual General Prior to the directive, it also ordered Oando’s Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr Wale Tinubu, and other affected board members to resign.

However, the company immediately replied, saying the alleged infractions and penalties were unsubstantiated, ultra vires, invalid and calculated to prejudice the business of the company.

Reacting to the development, the Executive Director, Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch in Nigeria, Mr Splendour Agbonkpolor called on SEC to be an unbiased umpire by being transparent in the discharge of its duties.

He argued that the failure of the Commission to make public its findings of the investigation is carried out before sanctioning the oil company has created the impression that it is acting a script.

Agbonkpolor said: “The stakeholders of OANDO PLC demanded for the content of the investigation report which took two years to compile but the Commission refused to oblige the stakeholders’ access to the investigation report.

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“This invariably implies that there are cookies in the investigation report thus it could be inferred that the Commission may be acting differently from the content of the report that supposedly indicted the chief executive and the second in command of the company.

“The clarity that is needed by the public and Oando stakeholders, is yet to be made available by SEC, this we also seek as Civil Society Organisation in line with Freedom of Information Act, but still not made available, which brings scepticism in the entire processes and procedures that were followed during the course of investigation.

“There is the need for SEC to be even in carrying out its statutory responsibilities, not to be seen as being lopsided and haphazard is more pressing than the selective economic fiasco that is seen in operation.

“Securities and Exchange Commission is highly revered by all that knows the capacity that it carries, not to be seen as being unprofessional in a manner that paint the Commission in a negative light in the public domain, because of one selfish interest somewhere playing the political tunes, while SEC dances to it for their amusement and for the calamity of all.”

The CSO further urged SEC to review its sanctions on Oando Plc in order to clear her questioned integrity rather than waiting for the interpretation of the Court before it withdraws her sanctions.

” We call on Securities and Exchange Commission to obey the order of the Court and allow the law to take is a full course in addressing the injustice melted on Oando Plc, that there was no fair play in the entire processes of investigation and to decline sanctions on earlier imposed.”