IT is unfortunate that the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) will again go for the big stick all in the bid to get a prominent Nigerian to pay debts owed to the financial system. We refer here to the most recent order by Justice Chuka Austine Obiozor of Federal High Court, Lagos, transferring two choice properties belonging to Demola Seriki, a former defence minister, located in Lagos and Abuja to AMCON over debts valued at over N1 billion. The debts, owed Oceanic and Skye banks – both of which are now defunct – were said to have been taken over by AMCON at various times.
A similar order of August 8, targeted at the Ikoyi property of former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke, was all it took to compel him to work out a closure on a N537 million debt – within a month!
Yet again, the story is one of the recalcitrance of a powerful cartel to engage meaningfully with the creditors on the legacy debts which, according to AMCON, currently put the financial services sector in a N5trillion hole. These debts are neither recent nor the demand to get the debtors to pay up any new. While efforts to recover them have come in various shades of tactics, including the now popular ‘name and shame’, the debtors have either been unyielding or are known to have feigned outright indifference even when their names were published in newspapers. In fact, a good number are known to have resorted to using the instrumentality of the law to frustrate every move by the creditors to foreclose on pledged assets. In all, the top 20 debtors are said to owe 67 percent of the entire debts.
We see the latest ruling of the court, particularly the signal it sends across as important in a number of ways. First, that the courts have an important role to play in the resolution of the crisis. After all, the argument before now has been that the courts have been at best unhelpful or oftentimes tardy. Second, that the amended AMCON Act is working. The latter is particularly noteworthy as AMCON has always complained about being encumbered under the old provisions. Thirdly, that the debtors no longer have a hiding place provided there is close collaboration between the courts and AMCOM.
This is where the issue of the top 20 debtors again comes to the fore. It is certainly bad enough that these few Nigerians can hold the entire financial services sector to ransom; worse is that they have managed to tie up the hands of the judiciary as it were, all this while also. It is for this reason that we see the recent court rulings as sign of a possible new beginning.
This is where the inter-agency committee set up and inaugurated by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on the issue in September could not have come at a better time. The body, with membership drawn from AMCON itself, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Justice has its work cut out: get the debtors to redeem their obligations by all lawful means. We expect the body, working with the Bankers’ Committee, to leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the debtors either discharge their obligations or risk being shut out of the financial services sector. The message, in the end, should be that no one, no matter how powerful, would be allowed to prey on the financial system.
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