With the assumption of office of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Securities and Exchange Commission has assured of the readiness of the capital market to aid in infrastructure development.
This assurance was given by Director General of the SEC, Mr. Lamido Yuguda during an interview Thursday.
Yuguda expressed the belief that the Nigerian Capital Market, being an organised and specialised financial market that drives capital mobilisation through domestic savings and foreign capital inflows, is well positioned for the realisation of the infrastructure objectives of the nation.
According to him, the benefits of adequate infrastructure in any economy cannot be overemphasised as they help to speed up development and create wealth.
He said, “If we are able to get well-thought-out infrastructure in this country, it will do a lot of things. It will raise the level of economic activities in the country as a whole and these activities will need people to be employed so they can carry out those activities.
“That means the youths and our people will get more employment and as you get more employment, people get more disposable income and need to find outlets to spend that income. That means people can set up small
industries and be able to live decent lives. Also, people will be buying the basic essentials of life and the people who are in the business of producing or selling them will be in business. So you find out that there is a chain effect.”
The SEC boss recalled that in the past, most famous industries were sited close to rail lines to aid the transportation of heavy machinery and raw materials as well as finished products to consumers.
“You can have several carriages in the train carrying various products. Today, we do not have the rail lines and we need to revive this infrastructure,” he said.
The SEC DG expressed the hope that the nation’s economy would bounce back and thrive with the aid of the capital market.
“I have a lot of hope in our economy. Right now if you do the GDP ranking, Nigeria is about number 30, but I am very confident that if we get our infrastructure right, our ranking will improve tremendously.”
He stated that Nigeria had the population and the market right now, which means that investment in infrastructure can pay back in Nigeria faster than in other parts of Africa because the nation has more people that can use the infrastructure.
He therefore urged the government at all levels to look towards the capital market for financing such investments which he said would aid the much-needed economic development.
He assured that once the infrastructure is right, the number of users will grow which in turn boost economic activities.
Yuguda said this will all be aided by the capital market as it is unbiased price determination machinery for the economy.