Mounir Gwarzo vs Kemi Adeosun Round 1

My partner Lami and I sat conveniently on the couch in my little office to watch this battle of giants. On the left hand side was the Honourable Minister who came to the fight with her Director of legal and one lady who did not say a word, but kept nodding her head each time the Minister or the Director of legal spoke. On the other side was Munir Gwarzo the suspended Director General looking very regal in his all white and in full aristocratic mode. He was only supported by a gentle man who whispered in his ears intermittently.

This was a session all capital market operators would be interested in and also investors especially now that the market is being adjudged the best performing in the world for 2017. The issues were very clear and distinct, the House of Representatives Committee chaired by the Chairman of the Capital market and institutions committee wanted to know the circumstances behind the recent suspension of the DG and in my estimation to also look into the allegations against the suspended DG.

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At the point I joined the session, the Honourable Minister was just seeking permission for her Director of Legal to speak, he took us trough the Legal processes that were taken in arriving at the decision. He was taken up on some of those processes and whether he performed well or not is left for the Legal experts to judge.

Mounir gave a good showing of himself, speaking stridently and quoting copiously from the statutes that govern appointments, retirements and the much controversial severance package. He also spoke about his involvement in firms that were doing contracts for SEC.

The Honourable Minister was brilliant. She spoke with authority affirming her desire to ensure transparency and discipline as the hallmark of a healthy market. She quickly claimed the historic performance of the market as a direct result of her intervention. A good politician she is beginning to make.

For me, this is a healthy development as it would serve to guide policy decisions knowing fully well that the possibility of a public scrutiny looms. If you know you cannot justify your actions, you will be very careful. The brilliance of both sides was glaring for all to see and I was just shifting support as each side spoke.

But the small chink on the side of the Minister was her Director of Legal who stumbled quite a bit and ended up in his closing remarks to start defending his integrity. I wondered why he was doing that since he was not the one in the dock. But I guess this was as a result of some answers he had given which had veered towards a little bit of partiality in the way Munir was treated as was evidenced by some of the committee members’ shouting for mounir to be recalled.

The real downside of this all were the quality of questions by some of the panel members. Apart from the Chairman and one or two others, the rest were clearly out of their depth and this is sad as they would not be able to thoroughly look at the issues intelligently with a view to bringing out the kind of answers Nigerians are looking forward to getting.

But anyways, this is just round one. I remain excitedly expectant of the continuation of this session as you all know that I remain an interested party in this unfolding drama.
If you ask me, it was Munir that won this round. I could be wrong.

 

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