| How OBJ Snubbed NYSE |
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| Written by Laolu Akande | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 15 October 2006 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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HOW NIGERIAN PRESIDENT SNUBBED NYSE OFFER TO RING BELL LAOLU AKANDE
NEW YORK
A quiet and subtle international row may have been responsible for last month's invitation of three African presidents to ring the closing bell at the world famous New York Stock Exchange without the inclusion of Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo.
There were also concerns that three African leaders were lumped together to ring the closing bell all at once, a scenario, sources said Nigeria would have simply rejected.
Inside sources at the NYSE, as it is popularly known, confirmed to The Guardian on Sunday that a previous invitation given to President Obasanjo to ring the bell earlier this year in June was dramatically changed after Obasanjo had arrived in New York. The fallout of that June plan is now being cited as responsible for the non-inclusion of Nigeria in last month NYSE invitation to African leaders to ring the bell.
Instead of Obasanjo ringing the bell at either the opening of the NYSE trading in the morning or in the evening at closing, officials of the NYSE suddenly asked that Obasanjo's invitation to ring the bell be reduced to a mere invitation for lunch at the NYSE in lower Manhattan, New York.
About 200 television viewers are estimated to daily watch the live ringing of the NYSE opening and closing bells around the world, and it is considered a significant publicity boost for any person to ring the bell. The NYSE on the other hand uses its selection bell ringers to make strategic statements about the direction of the exchange and to also show expand its own commercial base.
The last minute change expectedly infuriated President Obasanjo and his delegation which had arrived in New York to attend other matters including ringing the bell at the NYSE. Diplomatic sources disclosed that the new Chief Executive of the NYSE had personally asked Obasanjo in Davos, Switzerland at the annual UN Development summit to come and ring the bell and later last year in November 9 when the former Finance Minister led a presidential delegation to the NYSE to rally support for foreign investment in Nigeria, the request was further made of Nigeria to have Obasanjo visit the NYSE to ring the bell.
However, the Obasanjo delegation, according to Nigerian government officials then snubbed the NYSE request that Obasanjo should just visit the NYSE for lunch. Said a source "The President's delegation told them, no bell, no visit."
Taken by surprise at Obasanjo's rejection of its invitation for lunch, the NYSE leadership fearing a much greater publicity fiasco should Obasanjo, the president of one of Africa's most robust economies with a great investment potential, snub its invitation. The NYSE then suddenly sent word back to the Obasanjo delegation that it was now ready for Obasanjo to come to the NYSE and ring the bell.
The President and his delegation however maintained its stand and rejected the offer at that point. However according to Nigeria's Ambassador to the US, Professor George Obiozor who was actively involved in the planning, Obasanjo only rejected the offer due to the exigencies of his tight schedule during the US trip. But Obiozor confirmed that indeed the offer to have Obasanjo ring the bell was planned before he arrived in the US.
The Nigerian Ambassador who spoke to The Guardian last week added that there was a mutual agreement between Nigeria and the NYSE over the cancellation of Obasanjo's invitation to the NYSE. Said he "there were no problems at all, but the president could not keep the appointment due to constraints on his appointment.
When The Guardian asked the NYSE for comments, its spokespeople merely said "at this time we have no comment regarding your inquiry about the Nigerian president." Mirtha Medina,a Media Relations Officer with NYSE however added "that official government visits are typically announced by the delegations themselves."
However inside sources disclosed to The Guardian that NYSE's sudden change of heart not to have Obasanjo ring the bell may have been due to the influence of some top leaders of the NYSE who felt the Nigerian president should not be given such an honor due to then prevailing Charles Taylor issue, who Nigeria was not initially willing to release to the UN Special Court. Sources said there are some politically conscious anti-Obasanjo officials at the top of NYSE, some of whom have worked in the past in the White House and are known to have been active objectors to Obasanjo's politics. Some of them actually tried to cancel Obasanjo's last June visit to the White House but President George W. Bush, as The Guardian reported, had overruled them.
Last month, three African presidents were brought to the NYSE to ring the closing bell. Tongues wagged at the idea because of the obvious non inclusion of President Obasanjo in the plan, even though Obasanjo was billed to be in town at the same time for the General Assembly meeting of the United Nations. Obasanjo later canceled his own plans to attend the UN Assembly due to the recent military plane crash that killed several Nigerian top military officers.
There were also concerns in the New York pro-African business circles that the NYSE was treating African leaders with levity by inviting three presidents to ring the bell, even though the same NYSE during the same time normally invites one head of state at a time to do the bell ringing.
The African leaders invited last month were the President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf,
the President of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza and the President of Tanzania, Jakaya M. Kikwete. That same month, other heads of states from even smaller countries from Europe were invited solo to ring the bell. At the event, even though three African leaders were present, it was actually the president of Liberia that pressed the button ringing the bell and banged the gavel which normally follows the bell-ringing. Not to be outdone, the other presidents then also banged the gavel one after the other. No Nigerian president has rung the NYSE bell before according to NYSE spokesperson Medina, except that former head of state General Abudulsalami Abubakar visited the NYSE on September 25, 1998. However, the NYSE official added that Abubakar, a military head of state "did not ring the NYSE bell."
Other African leaders that have rang the bell include those from South Africa, Zambia and Botswana.
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Posted by Robot| 15.10.2006 19:48