The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Mallam Mounir Gwarzo as the substantive Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC).
A statement by SEC said the confirmation followed the consideration of the screening report of the Senate Committee on the Capital Market headed by Senator Ayo Adeseun.
The committee had earlier screened Gwarzo and expressed satisfaction at his nomination.
Following a call on the upper legislative chamber to confirm his nomination by President Goodluck Jonathan, some members of the Senate, including the three senators from Kano State (Gwarzo’s state of origin) had spoken in favour of the new DG.
These are Senators Bello Gwarzo, Kabiru Gaya and Bashir Lado.
The statement quoted the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, and a former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senator Ganiyu Solomon, as supporting Gwarzo’s nomination before the Senate President, David Mark.
Mark was said to have put the motion for the confirmation before his colleagues.
The statement added, “The motion was then unanimously supported without a single opposition. In his comment, Mark described Gwarzo as ‘a round peg in a round hole’ and expressed the hope that he would bring his experience to bear on the job.”
A fellow of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, Gwarzo was born 52 years ago in Kano. He attended Bayero University, Kano where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1987.
He later went to the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, where he did his post-graduate course in Development Finance in 1991.
He was trained as a stockbroker and qualified as an associate member of the CIS in 2005. He later became a fellow of the institute.
His working career spans a period of 25 years in various organisations, including the Ministry of Trade, Kano State; Nigerian Stock Exchange, Century Merchant Bank Limited, Empire Securities Limited, SEC, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and MTL Global Investment Limited, prior to joining the board of SEC.
Gwarzo had the opportunity of working as an operator and regulator in both the primary and secondary markets of the Nigerian capital market, and out of his 25 years’ working experience, 20 were spent in the NSE.
The statement noted that the new SEC DG attended several courses both at home and abroad on securities, bonds and the markets, among others.