Criminal Jurisdiction of Securities Market:

The Investment and Securities Tribunal lacks criminal jurisdiction over securities crimes being constitutional mandate of the Federal High Court. Hence, due to overloaded genre of cases, securities crimes files litter the High Court docket for years with lethal consequences. Hence, this research paper analyzed lacunae in the provisions of Investment and Securities Act 2007 touching criminal jurisdiction of Investment and Securities Tribunal over securities crimes. The paper focused on the identified problems responsible for lacunae as distilled: legislative inertia of the National Assembly, conspiracy of the prosecutorial institutions with politicians to foil criminal jurisdiction status of the IST, conservatism of criminal justice system in the grundnorm, and quasi autonomy of the IST. The research observed that Investment decline weakens the market amidst damning report of the World Bank Index on enforcement of contract in Nigeria. The paper suggests urgent re enactment of IST law with constitutional imprimatur to remedy the problems.