In what many have described as one of the longest forensic audits in the history of Nigeria, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) at the weekend published the outcome of its probe into the operations of Oando Plc and thereafter prescribed some far reaching sanctions for two of its principal officers, Mr Wale Tinubu and Omamofe Boyo.
Last Friday, SEC had in the aftermath of the sacking of Tinubu and Boyo, constituted the interim management headed by Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, a former Shell Development Company boss to oversee the affairs of Oando Plc and conduct an Extra Ordinary General Meeting on or before July 1, 2019.
The Commission not only barred Tinubu and Boyo from holding directorship positions in public companies for a minimum of five years, but also ordered other directors of the company to resign their positions immediately.
But Tinubu and Boyo, who rejected the sanctions sought redress in a Lagos High Court presided over by Justice Mojisola Olatoregun, who granted all their prayers.
The judge ordered that the order be served on SEC alone with the motion on notice, as well as other processes.
She also directed the applicants to file an undertaking indemnifying the Commission in case it later turns out that the orders ought not to have been made.
The respondents in the suit are SEC and Mr Mutiu Sunmonu as the first and second respondents respectively.
However, on the same day the judge gave the ruling, a detachment of the Nigerian Police laid siege at the Lagos head office of the oil and gas company to enforce SEC’s removal of Tinubu and Boyo, that was announced last weekend.
But responding to SEC’s publication of the audit findings and sanctions on Oando, some shareholders expressed displeasure that the regulator’s actions were made public on its website before the company received a formal letter on the evening of the same day. They argued that nothing was heard of the decisions until Saturday morning when it appeared in some newspapers.
They stated that just as they were reconciling themselves with the implications of the news for the company and its shareholders, they received text messages on Sunday, June 2, stating that SEC had dissolved the management team led by Wale Tinubu and put in place an interim management team headed by Mutiu Sunmonu.
According to them, the next day Monday, they still got calls narrating how police men stormed Oando’s head office and drove staff out. The agitated shareholders said they ended the day with news that Oando’s principals had received an injunction barring SEC and its agencies from executing the directives in the SEC letter dated May 31.
Speaking on behalf of the Sokoto Shareholders, Alhaji Kabiru Tambari, said, “we are not happy with what has happened. Wale Tinubu and his management team have suffered; they have put their resources, energy and time into keeping this company to move it forward and now SEC wants to take them away from the company. It is not just them but we shareholders of Oando, as well. When the company was making losses, SEC didn’t bring up all these infractions and sanctions but now the company is doing well, and has returned to profit, they’ve come with such drastic actions. This will foil the company’s attempt to pay us dividend at the end of the year.”
Tambari added that, “it is clear that SEC wants to kill the company. He said “How else do you explain an action such as this that defies logic? We, the shareholders of Oando, who SEC is meant to be protecting are not satisfied with the way this issue has been handled. They should think of the effect their actions will have on the market. If this continues, the company will not be able to pay salaries,its shares will suffer capital depreciation in both Johannesburg and Nigerian Stock Exchanges leaving us in precarious position. We implore the court to look into the matter carefully and adjudicate accordingly.”
The sanctions, which have led to non-stop conversations on social media over the past few days have brought to the fore inconsistencies in SEC’s process.