NYSC Marshall, apprentice trader win N5 million SEC integrity award

Each of the recipients got N2.5 million.

An official of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, Nwolbak Konpe, and an apprentice trader, Ngwu Uchenna, are 2013 winners of SEC Integrity Award.

The duo emerged joint winners at the 2013 annual Capital Market Committee, CMC, Retreat in Abuja for “exhibiting high level of integrity in different circumstances.”

Mr. Konpe was selected for the award for returning money in excess of N1.2 million he recovered from the scene of a motor accident involving nine victims in which seven died; while Mr. Uchenna was rewarded for returning N400,000 he found in a tricycle, popularly called ‘keke NAPEP.’

On discovering the money at the accident scene, Mr. Konpe was said to have reported it to his command from where it was returned to the owners.

Similarly, Mr. Uchenna reportedly took the money he found to the presenter of a popular radio programme, ‘Brekete’ on Love FM, Abuja, from where the owner was invited and the money handed back to him.

Mr. Uchenna his action was influenced by his strong moral upbringing by the father, who, he said, always counseled him against taking whatever did not belong to him.

For emerging joint winners, the duo were rewarded with N5million, to be shared equally.

The Director General of the SEC, Arunma Oteh, who instituted the award in 2012, to underscore the central role integrity plays in the capital market, said N1million cash would be given to each of them.

Ms. Oteh said the balance of N1.5million would be invested in the three top performing Collective Investment Schemes in the Nigerian capital markets.

The investment in Collective Investment Schemes, she pointed out, underscores SEC’s commitment to stimulating growth in the managed funds segment of the capital markets. The scheme advertises the near risk-free status of Collective Investment Schemes as an avenue for investing in the capital market.

“The integrity award has the dual objective of rewarding honesty, integrity, purity and transparency as bedrock cultural values of capital markets and encouraging investment in Collective Investment Schemes registered in the Nigerian capital market”, Ms. Oteh said.

She said only Nigerians who exceed the call-of-duty by performing a rare act of honesty, qualify to be nominated for the award, adding that such Nigerians must be of exemplary integrity in the conduct of their personal, business or professional life.

“They must be people who have sacrificed self for a higher cause,” she said. She said the bases for selecting the winners for the award were their rare acts of integrity and moral uprightness, which they variously exhibited.

The maiden edition of the award in 2012 went to an Abuja Airport taxi driver, Imeh Usuah, who returned N18 million cash forgotten in his cab by his two customers.