DANGOTE NEW NSE PRESIDENT

Alhaji Aliko Dangote has emerged the 17th president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Thursday in Lagos through a unanimous voice vote, a development that finally laid to rest speculation on whether he would transit to the post.

His election came during the peaceful council meeting of the Exchange immediately after its Annual General Meeting (AGM), presided over by his predecessor, Dr Oba Otudeko. But before then, Otudeko was re-elected alongside three other retiring council members of the Exchange who were eligible for re-election during the AGM.

Until his election, Dangote was the first vice president of the Exchange, and by that token succeeded Dr. Oba Otudeko, the out-going president of the Exchange.
He will preside over the affairs of the Exchange for the next three years.
Explaining how he emerged, the Director General of the Exchange, Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke, said: “We didn’t have to vote. Dangote was elected by a unanimous acclamation. He was the second to be so voted after Sir. Odumegwu Ojukwu who succeeded Mr. E. C. W. Howard, an expatriate.”
In his response, Dangote, who identified liquidity crunch and loss of investor confidence as two major problems in the market, expressed gratitude and sought the support of all stakeholders towards fixing the market.

In Otudeko’s address during the meeting, it was glaring that the stage was set for Dangote’s presidency as he stated that “we have listened to all stakeholders, we have advanced issues with objectivity and courage…We have finally settled to resolve all issues in the best and enduring interest of a stable Nigerian capital market, our constituency, indeed our heritage, conscious as always that actors come and go but institutions, in this case , the market, indeed its settled precedents, processes and integrity tower above all of us.”

Alhaji Aliko Dangote is the President of Dangote Group of companies comprising Dangote Sugar; Dangote Flour Mills; Benue Cement Company; Obajana Cement and Dangote Oil, among others. The first Nigerian to feature on Forbes list of the World’s richest men,. last year, he emerged as the world’s richest black African with a ranking of 334 and a fortune of $3.3 billion.

And despite that some billionaires of 2008 did not make this year’s list, Dangote did by occupying 261st position with an estimated worth of $2.5 billion. He became the first vice president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2006 following his election as the president of the Northern Zone of the Exchange.
The succession plan in the Exchange is orderly: the first vice president automatically steps in to fill the vacuum when the tenure of the incumbent expires .

The doubt of his becoming the NSE boss stemmed from his alleged involvement in the manipulation of the share price of African Petroleum (AP) Plc but he was absolved of any complicity by the Stock Exchange and its apex regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Speculation was rife that Dangote was under intense pressure to resign his position as the first vice president to create room for a neutral person to emerge as the NSE president. The rumour mill had it that the perception of Dangote’s involvement in the price manipulation saga might be difficult to erase totally from the mind of investors, who had already lost confidence in the market and its operators. “To boost investors’ confidence, then Dangote must be prevented from becoming the president”, an analyst told Daily Sun then.
Reacting to the rumour, Dangote said he was not under any intense pressure to resign from the council before the Annual General Meeting. Rather, he blamed the rumour on Otudeko.He explained that right from the time he became a council member of the NSE, Otudeko had always fielded candidates against him and was capitalizing on the opportunity presented by the forthcoming AGM to present another candidate against him again.

His words: “For instance, during the election for the presidency of the Northern Zone of the NSE, he fielded Abdullahi Mahmoud, a director of Nigerian Flour Mills Plc and also one of my company’s directors against me. However, during the election, Mahmoud got two votes, while I got over 20 votes, which enabled me to become the president of the Northern Zone.”
According to him, Otudeko wanted to maintain his stranglehold on the Stock Exchange by putting a candidate that would do his bidding after his tenure.

This is all about the demutualization of the NSE. He is the chairman of the demutualization committee, which is not right, and he wants to retain that position. Ideally the chairman of the demutualization committee should be an outsider to prevent a conflict of interest from arising because it entails making the stock exchange a quoted company.”

Dangote further revealed that the presidency of the NSE had been zoned to the Kaduna-Kano section of the North, which makes him the natural candidate to secure the post. “But Otudeko wants to see someone else emerging, possibly Dr. Umaru Mutallab, the current chairman of First Bank of Nigeria Plc, which is unfortunate ,given that the man is 69 years old and is a retired council member.” But that had also been put to rest now.

At a meeting behind closed-doors on Wednesday, a source disclosed that the stakeholders had decided to follow the laid down procedures of electing the president.

At his valedictory speech, Otudeko pleaded with “all stakeholders, the investing public, analysts and commentators to keep the market “sacred and peaceful, protect it and advance its standards and practices…and speak positive to enhance confidence in our market. That is central to its sustained growth”.The new president promised to work hard with his team and all stakeholders towards restoring investor confidence, stressing that once the problem of liquidity was addressed, that confidence would return naturally.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/newsonthehour/2009/aug/07/newsbreak-07-08-2009-001.htm