Members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions urged the dissolution of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) due to its failure to recover liabilities amounting to N5 trillion.
The demand was raised during the committee’s session where Ahmed Kuru, the Managing Director of AMCON, defended the agency’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year.
In the course of the budget defense, Kuru informed the lawmakers that AMCON had recovered approximately N648 billion out of the total liabilities of N5 trillion as of September 20. Some committee members expressed concern about AMCON’s financial statements since the beginning of the year, criticizing the agency’s management for what they perceived as a lack of proactivity in recovering liabilities.
Among those advocating for the dissolution of AMCON were Sani Musa (APC-Niger East), Jimoh Ibrahim (APC-Ondo South), Adamu Aliero (PDP-Kebbi Central), and Ifeanyi Ubah (APC-Anambra South). Sen. Musa, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, expressed dissatisfaction with the agency’s overall performance.
“Most of the loans were owed by individual companies which were never sanctioned and at the end of the day, the same company would go back to buy back their assets that AMCON had hitherto taken over. Are we going to continue like this?
“It is not only about defending the budget, it is about seeing the effect of the appropriation. We need to know whether it is working. Or are we just creating a job for those we can’t protect?
“Will it not be better to scrap AMCON since it seems to have lost its statutory mandate?” the senator asked.
Ironically, some of the Senators who advocated for the dissolution of AMCON are currently embroiled in legal disputes with the agency concerning the recovery of assets seized due to their indebtedness.
As of June 9, 2023, the Court of Appeal in Lagos dismissed an appeal by Sen Jimoh Ibrahim, the chairman of Global Fleet Group, challenging the seizure of 12 of his assets and freezing of accounts by AMCON over an alleged N69.4 billion debt.
In October 2023, a Federal High Court in Lagos struck out the charge filed by AMCON against Senator Ifeanyi Ubah and his company, Capital Oil and Gas Limited, over an alleged N135 billion indebtedness. Justice Nicholas Oweibo struck out the charge following an oral application by AMCON’s counsel, Oluwaseun Onabowu, seeking the withdrawal of the suit.
During the court’s last sitting in June 2023, criminal summons were directed to be issued against Senator Ifeanyi Ubah and his company. However, during the proceedings in October, AMCON’s counsel informed the court that, as a result of a consent judgment in a related case before the Federal Capital Territory Court in Abuja, the parties had agreed to withdraw the case against the lawmaker in Lagos.