A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Prof. Fabian Ajogwu, on Thursday in Lagos called for a sustainable healthy business environment for corporate governance to thrive in the country.
To this end, a set of principles should be identified, scrupulously implemented and practiced, he said.
Ajogwu spoke at the maiden edition of Alliance Lecture Law Series and book presentation with the theme, “Contemporary Corporate Governance Issues in Nigeria.”
He said corporate organisations should uphold their fiduciary duties in a corporate governance in a bid to foster healthy business environment in the country.
Acording to the Professor of Law, corporate governance imposes a serious responsibility on an individual by an entity to act on its behalf with utmost trust and faith.
“When you talk of corporate governance, I always like to approach this topic by giving illustration of two things — ownership and duty.
“First in my definition, I will like to see ownership as typified by the right to destroy a thing; anything you can lawfully destroy belongs to you.
“So, if I burn my jacket, there is nothing you can do about it because it is lawfully mine. However, if I engage some of you in this room to dry clean and iron that jacket or do anything in relation to it, then the first thing I loose is the right to destroy that suit without consulting the owner.
“This is what happens when you are in a private placement and then go into public placement, you cease to be the owner of that public entity, and at best, you can only become a fractionalised owner of its shares,” Ajogwu said.
Ajogwu said the scenarios clearly depict the idea of corporate governance in Nigeria, adding that since most entrepreneurs were unable to deal with this reality, it had interfered largely with their fiduciary duties which forms the thrust of the scheme.
He stressed: “Whenever you find an individual or entity which is incapable of a function, such individual or entity is largely dependent on a set of people or officers called directors who ensure success in their duties.
“The dependency ratio in corporate governance brings about the fiduciary duty which includes honesty and accountability as basic ethics.
According to him, the practice of corporate governance in Nigeria is already embedded in the Companies and Allied Matters Act.
Also speaking, Mr Dotun Sulaimo, the Chairman, Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), disclosed that the council was working on ways to regulate the corporate governance scheme.
“We are already working on a code which will regulate corporate governance, but they are not meant to replace existing regulatory laws.
“It is going to be a principle-based friendly code which will first be in a draft and we will continue to have public discourse and eventually become fully public in due course.”
The code, Sulaimo said, would create 28 corporate governance principles with about 200 recommended practices which would give effect to the principles.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the high-point of the the event was the unveiling and launch of a book entitled, “Class Action in Nigeria”, written by the host of the conference, Mr Uche Val-Obi.
Dignitaries at the event include a Supreme Court judge, Justice Ejembi Eko, who represented the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Walter Onnoghen and the Director, Lagos Business School, Prof. Pat Utomi and senior members of the Bar. (NAN)
https://www.africaprimenews.com/2018/05/07/news/nigeria-not-too-young-to-run-bill-will-ensure-youth-participation-in-governance-says-dogara/
