Nnenna Orji’s journey into Securities Market Jurisprudence

I was going through the list of outstanding women lawyers compiled by the authoritative publishers and ranking agency of the legal professions, Chambers and Partners, when I came across an entry for Sally M. Abel. She was asked what her proudest professional achievement is and why? Hear her answer: “My proudest professional achievement has been […]

I was going through the list of outstanding women lawyers compiled by the authoritative publishers and ranking agency of the legal professions, Chambers and Partners, when I came across an entry for Sally M. Abel. She was asked what her proudest professional achievement is and why? Hear her answer:

“My proudest professional achievement has been building the firm’s trademark practice from nothing into a highly diverse, world class, internationally recognized team, managing portfolios and enhancing the brands of a number of the most cutting-edge technology, life science and new media companies on the planet…”

Recently ,Theophilus Abbah, editor of Sunday Trust, threw a similar question to our own Dr Nnenna, who will be clocking 10 years as the Chief Judge of the IST, come December 2012; “what legacy are you leaving behind”? And, she answered:

“The legacy is making this place an institution in the capital market, developing the Nigeria’s securities law; because there was none before,   no codified or comprehensive information as a field of law. So my team and I have been able to establish comprehensive facts about security law. We have been able to evolve the needed jurisprudence on securities market. We have volumes of law reports and cases.”

Dr Nnenna Orji came to the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST) as the pioneer Chairman, a position equivalent to that of Chief Judge of this specialised court in 2002. She came to meet a barren land, so to speak. Her appointment letter, the experiences she garnered back at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s Legal Department and the team she will put together were the only initial tools she had to build, almost from ground zero, a magnificent institution that hitherto did not exist in the country. Ten years after, a glorious institution is now in place, adjudicating various types of investments and securities civil cases. But more significantly there are now body of laws, cases and precedence to refer to— a jurisprudence on securities market has evolved, which hitherto did not exist.

When the IST took off, Dr Orji, recalled in the interview with Sunday Trust, “we didn’t start up with [the] luxury [of spacious court houses]. We had no building at all; we had no office at all to start with. We didn’t even have a rented office”

But, today, 10 years down the road, IST operates comfortably from its own buildings in its Head Office in Abuja, and in four of its five zonal offices in the country. The challenges of office accommodation and initial funding were, in retrospect, minor challenges in the face of daunting challenge of establishing the tribunal not knowing “what it will become and how it will be” to use Dr. Orji’s words. The fact that the IST is now a reality, a vital part of the capital market and exerting the desired impact is no mean achievement for the pioneer chairman of a novel institution – the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.

From its commencement hearing in February 2003 over the controversial Bonkolans Investments Limited share scam, the tribunal has handled over 350 cases to date. Of this number, 170 have been handled to their logical conclusions. This is made possible because of the wide spread of the tribunal offices. Apart from its Abuja Head Office, the tribunal has opened zonal offices with courtrooms in Lagos, Kano, Enugu and Port Harcourt and through collaboration with State judiciaries; it has offices/courts in Awka and Yenagoa.

In monetary terms the Tribunal has resolved, as at 2011, contested cases worth over N350 billion.  Only fifteen out of over 350 cases resolved by the Tribunal have been appealed to the Court of Appeal.  One case has gone to the Supreme Court and was decided in favour of IST.

Dr Orji did not lose sight of the place of knowledge and capacity building as a requisite for world class performance of the IST. To achieve this she initiated collaborative exchange programmes with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (USSEC), the National Judicial College, Nevada USA; the New Jersey Superior Court, Essex Vicinage, the Financial Services and Market Tribunal (FSMT), UK; amongst others.

The premium she gave to the development of the jurisprudence of capital market laws has its roots in her years at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Dr (Mrs.) Orji joined the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1984 as a Senior Legal Officer and Head of the Legal Division.  In the 18 years she spent at the SEC, from 1984 – 2002, she developed the Legal Division into an efficient and effective Department.  Through her legal knowledge of the securities law, she transformed the SEC into a strong regulatory institution that promotes sanity and entrenches the rule of law in the capital market. Little did she know, back then, that she was laying a foundation of a greater institution to come —the Investment and Securities Tribunal (IST). What she was doing back then was giving her whole self to the task before her. And, perhaps, that was the secret formula of her successes.

At the SEC she devoted her first years to reviewing the securities laws of Nigeria and proposed a comprehensive restructuring of the existing legal framework.  She crafted the 1988 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Act which replaced the deficient 1979 SEC Act. In fact the 1988 SEC Act laid the foundation of the modern day SEC. She was instrumental to the introduction of formal registration of capital market instruments and operators as a pre-requisite to engaging in capital market transactions.

The US educated economist and lawyer, Dr. Orji, proved the truism in the saying that the inventor requires more time, but his/her work is more valuable. It is not how much we do, but how well we do it that determines worth. She has proven too, that skill is power; a power which belongs to talent, devotion and endurance.

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan, a Business Development Executive, writes from Abuja ([email protected]).