3 BusinessDay journalists among winners in SEC capital markets essay competition off to Washington DC

Four financial journalists weekend embarked on an all-expenses paid trip to the International Law Institute (ILI) in Georgetown, Washington DC, United States of America, to participate in a programme on ‘Capital Markets – Foundation of Development and Regulation.’

The four journalists who are being sponsored by SEC Nigeria are past winners in the SEC Nigeria Capital Markets Essay Competition for Journalists in 2012 and 2013.

The four journalists are Iheanyi Nwachukwu of BusinessDay, who won the first prize in the 2012 edition of the essay competition while Patrick Atuanya also of BusinessDay and Teslim Shitta-Bey of Business Hallmark jointly won the first prize in the 2013 edition. The first runner up in 2013, Sule Teliat Abiodun, also of BusinessDay makes up the number of the USA bound foursome.

Both the first prize winner and runner up are entitled to participate in a training programme in a world class institution. While the first prize winner will undergo foreign training for two weeks, the first runner up will be trained for one week in foreign institution.

The third place winners had already attended a training programme at the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), Lagos, a foremost Nigerian institution. These third place winners are Chris Ugwu of New Telegraph for 2012 edition and Abiodun Eromosele of Thisday newspapers for the 2013 competition. All expenses for both the local and foreign training are paid by SEC Nigeria, apex regulator of the Nigerian capital market.

Addressing the Washington DC bound journalists shortly before their departure in Lagos on Saturday, October 11, 2014, SEC Nigeria’s executive commissioner (corporate services), Zakawanu Garuba, who represented the director general of the commission, Arunma Oteh, brought the best wishes of the DG, the entire board and management of the SEC to the journalists.

He stressed that the competition was part of the commission’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) intervention in the area of strengthening journalistic reporting of the markets, adding that it was conceptualised to stimulate interest in reading and writing about the markets not just for journalists’ segment of the SEC’s stakeholders’ publics but also among the wider investor publics who depend on the reportorial output of journalists to source information and intelligence on the markets.

He reiterated that the commission was aiming to retool financial markets reporting, deepen financial journalism and enhance market integrity and transparency through the essay competition.