Court Orders Immediate Reinstatement of Gwarzo as SEC DG

By Dipo Olowookere

Justice Sanusi Kado of the National Industrial Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the federal government to immediately reinstate the suspended Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Mr Mounir Gwarzo.

Mr Gwarzo was suspended from office in November 2017 by the former Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, after an Administrative Panel of Inquiry instituted by the Minister to look into allegations against the embattled SEC chief found him guilty.

Mr Gwarzo was accused of using his position to approve severance package and other benefits for himself despite still being in office as the head of the apex capital market regulator in Nigeria.

In his ruling, Justice Kado said the former Finance Minister, who was named as the second defendant in the suit filed by the suspended director-general, lacked the power to suspend the claimant. He then subsequently declared the suspension of Mr Gwarzo as null, void and of no effect.

According to the judge, the Administrative Panel of Inquiry that indicted the claimant was not a court of law or a quasi-judicial body, but a body only set up for a fact-finding mission.

He also declared that the recommendation of the Administrative Panel of Inquiry be set aside and ordered the reinstatement of the claimant as the DG of SEC and be allowed to complete his five-year term.

The trial judge further ordered that the claimant’s salaries, allowances, and entitlements accrued to be paid to him in full.

Business Post reports that after Mr Gwarzo was removed from office, the Minister appointed Mr Abdul Zubair as acting DG.

In April 2018, she later redeployed Mr Zubair to External Relations department and appointed Ms Mary Uduk as the acting DG of SEC.