Hayford Alile was born on the 24th April, 1940. He attended the University of Ibadan, and Howard University, Washington D.C. Apostle Alile’s rich working history began as an economic and financial consultant to Louis Berger in the USA in 1968. Between 1969 and 1972, he served as assistant director, Rutgers University Entrepreneurial Development Center, New Jersey, and Rutgers Minority Investment Co Inc. He worked as an investment adviser/broker with Investors Diversified Services Inc, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Thereafter, he was appointed in 1976 as the executive director/CEO of the then Lagos Stock Exchange (LSE). He became the director-general and chief executive of the Nigeria Stock Exchange in 1979, from where he retired in 1999. He has been at the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Security Printing and Minting Plc and has served as the chairman of several companies, including Unilever Nig. Plc, Oceanic Bank Nig. Plc (now Ecobank Nig Plc), UTC Nigeria Plc, and Afrinvest (WA) Ltd. He spoke with ODINAKA ANUDU on economic issues.
You supervised the transformation of the Lagos Stock Exchange into the Nigeria Stock Exchange. What really changed?
Of course, the name, the number of people, the number of stock brokers and insurance companies, the banks that would act as issuing houses and the brokers that would act as marketers. I think it was FirstBank that first listed on the stock exchange. Within a year, we listed about 10 or 12 securities.
Do you think the stock exchange has been able to mobilise sufficient capital for the Nigerian economy?
Yes, but it depends on how fast the economy is growing. The challenge is that many Nigerian businessmen did not know they needed to graduate into a limited liability company. Unfortunately, that mind-set is still there. A lot of Nigerians are hoping to be owner-managers, instead of creating companies that will produce goods and services for the Nigerian economy. I hope that the managers there will do as much as possible to train owner-managers to think of expansion.
Can you compare the stock exchange of then and now?
Of course, it is not easy to compare because they have expanded. When I took over, the exchange had between 16 and 20 securities. When I left in 1999, we had over 200. When I took over, the value of listed stocks was about N20 billion, but when I left, it was about N200 to N300 billion. Now the value is much, much higher—N14 trillion this week.
Do you consider Nigerian banks strong enough?
No.
Why?
Well, I don’t know. Some second and third generation banks are strong. The mangers are strong enough and their hands are clean enough. But many others are not strong enough.
Is it in terms of margins, assets, liabilities or other fundamentals?
They are not marketing enough. They are not doing enough.
Do you think Nigeria is getting its monetary policies right?
Anything good can always have a better one. Strangely enough, CBN is not the manager of the economy. They are taking the right steps now, but monetary policy seems to be too slow. They have to speed up a little.
When you were telling me your story, I was wondering how the country got here. At what point did Nigeria derail?
Most of us in leadership positions in religious bodies forgot that there is God that created us. A lot of people that are corrupt and are being taken to court are members of one religion or another.
Are you saying that corruption is what got us here?
Immorality and corruption dealt a big blow on Nigeria.
Were there policies that brought us here?
You see, there are two ways. If they put you people at a certain pipeline through which the wealth of the country flows into the society, and they fail to do the right thing, the country will not be better.
We need to structure policies that will encourage certain things and discourage corruption.
You were 80 few days ago. Can you let us into your life story?
When I finished Standard Six, I took my common entrance exam, passed and wanted to go further but, unfortunately, there was no money to pay for the school fees. My late father, James Alile, went to the Second World War and they took him to India. We were at home with our late mother. After finishing my secondary school, I took entrance exams to university, and I got scholarships. The Catholic Mission was prepared to send me to Ireland to do my tertiary studies. When my father came back home, he made a decision for me to go. There was a national exam in those days, and the best ten students were given state scholarships. That award used to come from the governor-general’s office. I was the fifth person that was given the scholarship. The federal government gave me a scholarship, and the Western government gave me a scholarship. Then Bendel was still part of the Old Western region. Altogether, I had five to six scholarships that year. So, I had to choose one. And of course, I had to choose the state scholarship. If you were a state scholar and your parents were not working, the government would be giving them a certain amount of money. I later went to the University of Ibadan to study Physics and Chemistry. In my third year, I was elected as the secretary of the National Union of Nigerian Students. It was a very big challenge for a small man like me. In the third year, I led delegates to the International Students’ Conference. I became a strong students’ leader, speaking on behalf of Nigerian students. The African Students wanted Nigerians to come to their meetings. Most of the African students’ leaders were anxious to have Nigerians as leaders. The first president of that union came from the host country—Kenya. The tenure in those days was for one year. I was elected the following year.
A lot of students’ leaders from African countries said they didn’t see why I should be replaced. They suspended the constitution and elected me for the second year. In 1965 or earlier, I had to represent Nigerian students at the American Annual Congress. I went to Canada, attended Canadian Students’ Movement and later came back to Washington D.C. My people in Ibadan asked me to stay in Washington DC to represent them permanently. They said they would arrange station allowances for me, which they did. It was from there that I registered at Howard University. Instead of continuing with Physics and Chemistry, I converted to Economics and Maths. When I finished, I was given a job by the university to teach maths. From there, I went to Rutgers University, which is an Ivy League, where I did my MBA. They employed me and even gave me a scholarship. They also gave me a lecturing job and I was the first black to teach there. A South African later joined me there as an MBA student. Both of us were the first set of black people there.
From there, the vice chancellor said I should stay as an assistant lecturer. I left there later and joined an engineering consulting firm.
When I returned, there was a man called Solomon Odia, who was the director for Management Development. He interviewed me in front of Papa Chris Ogunbajo. Within five minutes, Papa Ogunbajo had made up his mind, and that was how I got employed there. Solomon Odia said he would not allow me to go anywhere to work. Over a year and half, Odia called me and said, ‘I said I would not allow you to work elsewhere, but there is Lagos Stock Exchange and they want to have a new director-general’. I had no alternative but to go to the Stock Exchange. There was a man called Samuel Asabi. He used to be deputy governor of Central Bank; from there, he went to FirstBank as the chief executive. He was also the chief executive of Lagos Stock Exchange.
Odia arranged for me to have an interview. They interviewed me and they said I was the type of manager they had been looking for.
Asabi introduced me to council members as the man he was recommending. There was a lady called Toyin Olakuyi who, without my knowledge, recommended me to Odia.
When I resumed at the stock exchange, I was to visit one or two or European stock exchanges, the London Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. After spending a week at the London Stock Exchange, I found out that it was reflecting an economy that was far ahead. I got back home, told them that the stock exchange was representing an economy that was too far ahead of us. Our market was not big enough.
That was how we started our own here. We built our own market right from scratch. We started encouraging banks to start establishing their stock broking firms. We wanted them to send people abroad so that they would learn what stock exchange was all about—the vocabulary and the technology of the industry. We started working on licensing stock broking firms, looking at the minimum number of staff and the capital base. We put together a prospectus and how to put up shares at the stock exchange. We looked at how many weeks the prospectus would stay in the market and all that.
