SEC Shuts Down New Nation Fund Managers, Wonder Bank

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sealed-off 36 offices of New Nation fund managers, an alleged a wonder bank in a bid to protect innocent investors from falling into wrong investment schemes.

Mrs. Pamela Obioru, SEC’s assistant director and leader of the enforcement team in Lagos, said that New Nation Finance House was an illegally entity.

She said that 14 of the company’s officials had also been arrested by the police.

She said that the action was part of SEC’s statutory responsibilities of regulating the capital market and protecting investors.

Obioru said that the enforcement exercise was necessary to protect innocent investors from falling into wrong investment schemes.

“It is one of the routine exercises of the commission to clamp down on illegal investment operators in the country,” she stated. She added that Section 153 of the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) prescribed that operators of such firms must obtain licence and file returns to the commission.

Malam Bala Mohammed , SEC’s enforcement leader in Bauchi, said that the nationwide clampdown followed complaints from the investing public.

“We received intelligent reports about two months ago that a company called New Nation was involved in some dubious financial transactions.’

It was also gathered that the company receives money from investors with promises of high returns on investment. Following the tip-off, we swooped into action and carried out surveillance.

“We discovered that the company had branches in the 36 state of the federation, including the FCT, with headquarter in Port Harcourt.

“Our findings also indicated that the company was neither registered with the Central Bank nor with the SEC, the two financial regulatory bodies in the country,” he said.

Mohammed said that before any company could carry out any financial transaction, such a company must be duly registered and licensed by SEC or the Central Bank of Nigeria.

NAN reported that Tina Yohanna, the Branch Senior Client Analyst of New Nation in Bauchi, had while answering questions from the commission’s agents, said that the company was not into financial transactions.

She said that all she knew was that the company, owned by Mr Charles Dukwe, was involved in youth and women empowerment programmes.

“Our main activity here is empowerment of youths with basic computer skills to enable them earn a living in a technologically driven world.

“We carry out computer training, free of charge after the beneficiary obtains our application form at a cost of N1,000.”

She said that about 100 people had registered for the computer programme.

However, some of the clients told NAN in Bauchi that they knew about the company and its operations through their friends.

One of the clients, Saidu Mudi, said that he registered because he was told that the programme was free.

“I was at home when a friend of mine came and told me that a company was training youths on computer education for free, after obtaining an application form for N1, 000.

“After submitting the form, we were told that we will be trained on computer skills for free and that those who excel will be employed by the company while others will be given computers on loan to start a business,” he said.

Another beneficiary, Franca James, said she became interested when she was told that she would be trained on computer for free and at the end of the training would be given a computer set also for free.