Mounir Gwarzo takes over as Acting SEC DG

ERSTWHILE Executive Commissioner Operations in the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mounir H. Gwarzo has taken over from outgoing Director General of the Commission, Ms. Arunma Oteh, in acting capacity.  

  This was announced by Oteh at a formal handover ceremony in the commission’s headquarters in Abuja, Monday.  

  Oteh, while handing over to Gwarzo, described her five year tenure at the commission as absolutely outstanding, attributing it to the co-operation she received from every member of staff.

  She said: “When I joined SEC in January 2010, I was absolutely certain about why the SEC was important and what it’s role and what the agenda was. I was able to articulate it in one phrase “building a world class market.

  “To have a vision and have everyone being able to connect and align around it for me whether it is capital market operators, whether its shareholders and other stakeholders for me, it is something that I find very rewarding. But I don’t think it would have been possible without each and every one of you accepting the challenge to try something in a different way or to do something in a way that you are not quite sure what will happen.”  

  The Acting DG, Gwarzo was born 50 years ago in Kano and attended Bayero University, Kano and graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Economics in 1987.  In 1991, He proceeded to the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom where he obtained a Post Graduate Degree in Development Finance.  Mr. Gwarzo is an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Stock Brokers, in 2005 became a Fellow of the Institute.

  He has acted in Nigerian Capital Market as an operator and a regulator. This is evident from the caliber of institutions he has served in during his working career that spans a period of 25 years.

 The institutions include Ministry of Trade Kano State, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Century Merchant Bank Limited, Empire Securities Limited, The Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and MTL Global Investment Limited.

  Gwarzo has been a participant at several courses both home and abroad some of which are: The Securities Market Regulation which is the leading training program in securities regulation in the world by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Development of Bonds Markets in Johannesburg, South Africa, Assets Backed Securities and Mortgage Securitization in Singapore, Operational and Credit Risk Management in Dubai, and Advanced Management Programmes (AMPS) at INSEAD (The Premier Management Institute in Europe), Paris as well as at SAID Business School Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK.