Hope is dimming that the armed security operatives deployed to The Wings Office Complex, situated at 17a Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue Victoria Island, Lagos, housing the corporate head office of Oando Plc, on the order of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, are yet to vacate the premises.
As at 3 p.m. Thursday, reports reaching the media have it that that the armed security personnel were still present in Oando’s head office building and are supposedly situated in the ground floor reception, on all the Oando office floors as well as the stairways.
An employee of one of the corporate tenants at the Wings Office Complex said he was taken by surprise when he got to the office on Monday to see so many armed personnel in the ground floor reception.
“It just seemed odd when I saw all these policemen but I didn’t take much notice. The building has quite a number of tenants, so I didn’t think too much about it. Later in the day, everybody in the office was talking about how they had taken over the Oando offices and then I got a little panicked.
”Having no idea what the issue is with Oando, I was worried about the outcome of a full blown altercation with armed personnel. You know, in Nigeria, one has to be careful when dealing with someone with a gun,” he said.
A letter from the Lagos Commissioner of Police clearly states that they were deployed to Oando on the directives of the SEC Director-General (DG) to maintain law and order.
Also, Nkechi Agbanusi, a legal attorney said: “The SEC’s actions is what you can describe as dictatorial democracy.
”On the surface, they are the regulator with the best interest of the market at heart, but in truth, they are destroying value.”
Some shareholders of the company said: “This SEC and Oando saga is not playing out well; the regulator seems focused on one goal and achieving this goal by any means necessary including using innocent parties such as the police as well as taking steps that are heavy handed, unreasonably forceful and intimidating in nature.
In the process, they are calling to question, the role of the regulator and in a manner that will have far reaching implications in the long term.
