Nigeria's capital market is like a soccer player out of a youth academy, he or she is full of hunger with fire blazing from his or her eyes as he or she feels a sense of destiny and a connection to his or her heroes and their exploits. He or she is skillful, fast, and motivated. He or she is focused on a journey, and he or she is passionate. However, they lack experience, are impatient, and are full of kinetic energy unschooled by the hard knocks of life. Wait a minute, Is this a fair description of Nigeria's capital market? Certainly not.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has become more active in its functions but still defers to reaction rather than anticipation. With new technologies such as ChatGPT emerging as tools for market decision-making, and distributed ledger technology (DLT) becoming increasingly important in the payment and settlement architecture of the market, the SEC must come across stronger. Currently, issues around cross-border equity purchases using digital Apps are still at the sandbox (experimentation) stage and have not evolved into clear-cut oversight and operational guidelines.
The Nigerian capital market is much older than the post-academy kid and is more like a football player in mid-career preeminence with a mid-life crisis.