- Stock market consolidates as investors pocket N1.82trn
A Royal Court in Jersey, United States, has reportedly ruled that stolen assets worth £6.9m ($8.9m) be repatriated to Nigeria.
The said assets were allegedly diverted by Nigerian government officials in 2014 under the guise of purchasing arms to fight Boko Haram terrorists.
According to BBC, the court ruled that the money, deposited in a Jersey bank account, was likely stolen by officials in the Nigerian government in 2014.
Controversies had surrounded the purchase of weapons in the fight against insurgency with the then National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, being accused of diverting funds meant for security equipment during Jonathan’s administration.
Also in late 2014, a private jet was arrested in South Africa with $10m cash, which was allegedly meant for the purchase of military weapons.
However, the order of the Royal Court in Jersey followed a forfeiture notice to the court by Jersey’s Attorney General, Mark Temple KC.
The court held that the funds were deposited in a Jersey bank account and were not used for the arms purchase.
Temple said the government of Jersey was in close partnership with Nigeria on the repatriation of the funds.
The AG claimed part of the funds was shared with family members of politicians in the then-ruling People’s Democratic Party ahead of the 2015 general election.
“This case again demonstrates the effectiveness of the 2018 Forfeiture Law in recovering the proceeds of corruption and restoring that money to victims of crime.
“I now intend to negotiate an asset return agreement with the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” he said.
Stock market consolidates as investors pocket N1.82trn
Meanwhile, investors’ show of interest in the Nigerian equities market remained solid on Tuesday as the market closed higher by 3,329.48 points, ending the day’s session on a positive breadth.
Consequently, the market benchmark index, the NGX All-Share Index advanced by 3.93 percent to settle at 87,970.37 points, compared to the previous day’s gain of 1.92 percent which closed at 87,640.89 basis points.
At the close of trading, the year-to-date gain of the index rose to 17.65 percent. Resultantly, market capitalization inched higher by 3.93% to N48.14 trillion largely influenced by position taking activities from which equity investors saw approximately N1.82 trillion in gains on Tuesday.
Analysis of investor’s equities pick shows that the bullish sentiment on several stocks such as BERGER DANGSUGAR, FLOURMILL, FTN COCOA and HONEY FLOUR which all gained 10.00 respectively significantly affected the positive trend recorded.
The price upticks went bullish as the Exchange had more stocks gaining with 77 advancing against only 10 reporting declined share price. The top five decliners for the day include ROYALEX (-8.16 percent), MULTIVERSE (-6.59 percent), ELLAHLAKES (-4.79 percent), OANDO (-3.60 percent) and UACN (-3.13 percent).
Meanwhile, trading activity on the NGX stayed upbeat as the total deals, volume and value surged by 8.71 percent, 34.82 percent, and 45.46 percent to 14,835 trades, 1.09 billion units and N16.05 billion, respectively.
A breakdown across sub-sector gauges tracked indicated gains as five of the five sub-indices closed in the green zone. NGX Banking, NGX Insurance, NGX Consumer Goods, NGX Oil/Gas and NGX Industrial Goods indexes recorded gains of 4.35 percent, 5.80 percent, 2.97 percent, 0.11 percent and 9.72 percent, respectively.
At the end of the trading session, JAIZBANK emerged as the most traded security by volume with 150.64 million units worth N508.44 million, changing hands in 757 deals, while NASCON was the most traded security in terms of value resulting in N2.57 billion.
