The former President of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Mr Okechukwu Unegbu, has canvassed for grassroots investor re-education about the Nigerian capital market.

Unegbu said in an interview in Lagos that the re-education would re-position long-term savings through shares and engender greater domestic investor participation in the capital market.

He said that grassroots investor education would also leverage retail investors’ interest and confidence in activities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

He urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to focus on domestic retail investors instead of current emphasis on foreign institutional investor.

“We should put our money in the right places, what has happened is that those who are supposed to carry out this education do not understand the environment which the market should be played and most of the stockbroking firms are dissuaded because there is lot of attention paid to the so called foreign institutional investors, they adore them, we have not built up from the scratch our own local investors.

“Now the first thing you do is let them understand how the stock market operates, and you go to their habitats, to the place they do their business because if call them to come to ‘City Hall’ they will not want to leave their market store to come there but if you say after market, they will wait and they will listen.

“And that’s the best way to catch them and you do that all round the country.”

Unegbu, who is also the Managing Director of Maxifunds Investment and Securities Ltd., said that “the Nigerian stock market is bouncing back and the Exchange is doing so much to ensure that the confidence is sustained.”

He said that retail investors should take advantage of the current market growth and diversified their portfolio.

“What you see in the market now is share investors are coming and coming and coming but retail investors which are the ordinary Nigerian on the street are not taking advantage of the growth and confidence returning into the market.

“We think with these changes they should have a lot confidence and come back to the market that helped a lot of them to do so many things at a time. You cannot win it all the time; there is a time you can win and time you can lose.

“So I think the market is on the right path, I think the market is coming up; people should not come when the prices of stock have reached their maximum and expect.

“But they should in whatever they do, they should remember and have at the back of their minds when they are making an investment that the capital market is a long term market. Not a market for the minors, not a market for the faint hearted, not a market where you come you say you want to make one million the next day.”

According to him, investors should be wary of any market operators that said they should make millions in 90 days, adding that, such operator was not in touch with the market place.

Reports say that Ms Arunma Oteh, the Director-General of SEC, said recently that foreign investors contribute 70 per cent of daily trading value of equities traded on the Exchange.