EFFICIENCY OF THE NIGERIA CAPITAL MARKET BY USING DIVIDEND ANNOUNCEMENT AS THE RELEVANT INFORMATION SET

The main purpose of conducting this research is to ex-ray the effect of dividend announcement on security prices in order to determine whether the Nigeria capital market is efficient and at what form of its efficiency. Many searchers have attempted to determine the efficiency of Nigeria's capital market. Empirical results observed from their research has tended to suggest that the efficiency from Nigeria's capital market is weak and others, in the semi-strong form. However very jew have attempted to analyze the effect of dividend announcement does have an impact on stock prices. This observation to the best of my knowledge has not been reasonable or scientifically studied in Nigeria. Considering the fact that Nigeria capital market. Is under development assessing relevant information was discover painstaking there were no easy reliable published data on the divided announcements as it is prevented in other advanced economies like USA limited period of time and unavailability of appropriate research facilities contribute their quota as a hindrance to this research work. But base on the jew available relevant data, the decision was made to address this research work on small sample size and upon securities on the first tier market so that to give dividend announcements in information starting from the ones previously announced. This information will affect the stock prices spontaneously. And at this research will equally lend credence to the observation that Nigeria's capital market is efficient in the semi-strong form.