It was November 1962 in the small village of Entebe in East Africa, the specific date and time the narrator of the story said the stories to me could no longer be remembered due to the long interval it was shared. According to her, on the fateful day, it was in the morning, the sun was rising with rays accomplishing its rises, dews giving way because of the strength of the sun rays and suddenly the young Marianma Elumbe (not her real name) remembered that she had not done her domestic chores. So quickly she stepped out of her mom’s round hut.
As she moved towards the back of the hut to carry the broom and other domestic cleaning materials to start the usual daily domestic work, the early morning sun rays attracted her attention and suddenly she remembered the beautiful dream about her colourful feature she had over the night! Nevertheless, as the excitement about the dream was getting over her mind, then again, the thought of how she could to achieve those beautiful dreams crossed her mind knowing full well that her parents don’t have the financial capacity to groom her to become successful.
Marianma became perplexed and motionless, with pains deep in her mind, tears of sorrow began to run down her eyes, she gathered the courage and began to declare to herself that; even though, the parents had no financial muscle to train her, she must accomplish her dream. For brevity of space, she did not only grow up to become academically sound in Entebe but, grew up to become a global voice for the liberation of women and the destitute.
However, the story of Marianma could best be likened to the stories of several African women across Africa that rose from nothingness to attain the peak of affluence today with no assistance in sight. Some of them never had the kind of guts and courage Marianma had to accomplish her dreams. Others summoned the courage, but along the line, forces from their parents and peers made them to abandon their dreams. Notwithstanding, there are some of them that even in the midst of all kinds of unfriendly challenges, still fought their ways to become local, national and international voices at the moment.
I am talking about women that many men and their contemporaries look up to in the governance of their respective organisations and even their own countries of origin and beyond. Some of them never had the privilege of emanating from a well to do family but still went ahead to treasure hard without any iota of fear to conquer the island. The very good example of such women in our past and present Africa were; Mary First, Winnie Mandela, Mariam Makeba, Fumilayo RansomeKuti, Magareth Ekpo, and, presently we have the likes of Joyce Bander, Mariam Abacha, Funso Alakija, etc. What can we say about Mrs. Mary Uduak, the current Acting Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission?
She is in all ramification a true reflection of some of these great African women with global voices highlighted above! Uduak against all odds, like an indomitable woman she is today, worked hard from her childhood to get to her current position as the acting director general of Securities and Exchange Commission. Based on her penchant for human transformation and the general well-being of the society with special attention to the improvement of Nigeria economy and the standard operation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), today SEC that she is heading as acting DG is being rated in the Capital Market as one among the best in African continent. and as the strong pillar in the stability and growth of Nigeria current state of economy.
When the baton of leadership fell on her, after the suspension of the former DG, she immediately came up with workable revolutionary policies to make sure SEC as an organisation is excellently restructured to ensure rapid growth of Nigerian economy. Prominent among her excellent revolutionary policies were; the full implementation of over 66 out of 90 initiatives outlined in the Capital Market master plan, and like magic, already 13 out of the outlined policies initiated had been fully implemented.
Prominent among the initiatives that were fully implemented were; dematerialisation of shares, recapitalization of Capital Market operators, and the setting up of a National Investment Protection Fund. She also enormously deployed her wealth of knowledge as an authority in the management of finance and economy to establish the West Africa Securities Regulators Association. Other of her earth shaking achievements as an acting DG SEC include; E Dividend Mandate, Direct Cash Settlement, Roadmap on commodities eco-system, new listing initiatives, financial illiteracy, law reviews and non interest capital markets products and many others which could not appear here due to space constraints.
Meanwhile, as a leader who believes in action backed up with practical evidence, the implementation of the 10-year Capital Market Master Plan that she introduced, commenced full implementation under the guidance of Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council (CAMMIC) which is chaired by another great capital expert in person of Mr. Olutola Mobolurin and as expected, his efforts and that of his team regarding that area are making serious positive impacts.
Again, the Acting DG and her team as well as the general staff of the SEC and market stakeholders have taken up good initiatives to outline the master plan in a systematic manner to guarantee good turnover for the commission and Nigeria in particular. Meanwhile, the stakeholders are engaging with government to achieve more positive results regarding this area. Before I forget, since her assumption in office as acting DG, corruption rate as it used to be in the organisation has drastically gone down to almost zero level unlike the past that news about massive misappropriation of funds about the organisation flies round the media almost by every tickling of the clock, all thanks to her stiff stand against corrupt practices in the commission.
To be candid, the landmark achievements of Mrs. Mary Uduak that is making a lot of financial/business/capital expert and political analyst to call for her full confirmation as the substantive director general of the commission are indeed revolutionary. They are revolutionary for the reason that, such tremendous earthshaking achievements had never been recorded by her predecessors since the establishment of the commission decades ago.
By all standard and based on the indebt investigations carried out by some concernef independent Nigerians since her commencement of work on acting capacity, she is undeniably and with highly professional positive actions transforming the commission beyond imagination even as an acting director general with minimal power. And no doubt, she will definitely record more fantastic results when she is fully confirmed as substantive director general. So, I join millions of Nigerians that are on daily basis asking the Presidency to confirm her to also appeal to President Muhammadu Buhari to confirm her as the director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission to continue with her earthshaking achievements.
Odey is an Abuja based media practitioner, public affairs analyst, and community/human development expert.
