By Chisaa Okoye
Fresh facts have emerged that the Managing Director of Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON), Mr Ahmed Kuru and his team allegedly receive between 10 and 20 percent of the amount paid by buyer of any seized asset.
ArmadaNews investigations revealed that the team at AMCON, allegedly negotiate with buyers of seized assets on how much the agency would get for selling the assets to them at reduced prices.
It was gathered that for selling the properties to the buyers at prices lower than their actual value, the buyers inturn allegedly pay the AMCON team a certain percentage depending on the actual value of the assets and how much paid.
Kuru was arrested on Wednesday by the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for alleged assets diversion and selling of seized assets to cronies at below value prices by businessmen accused of loan default with banks, according to a report by Sahara Reporters.
According the report, the AMCON MD was invited by the commission after confirmation of his selling assets worth billions of naira belonging to a company, simply identified as Atlantic.
The newspaper reported that Atlantic defaulted on repayment and properties in collateral were seized while an action was instituted in court.
It said: “While the court case was still pending, the AMCON MD allegedly proceeded to sell the properties in dispute at a price far below the prevailing market value”, the report added.
ArmadaNews can report that Atlantic Energy Drilling Concepts, an indigenous oil and gas firm, was indebted to Skye Bank (now Polaris) to the tune of about N56 billion as at 2017. Two other firms – Cedar Oil and Gas and Real Bank linked to owners of Atlantic Energy, reportedly owed the same bank N22.4bn and N31bn respectively, bringing the total indebtedness to N110bn as at 2017 when Tunde Ayeni was the Managing Director of the bank.
AMCON, since inception in 2010 has recovered only a paltry N1.4trillion, out of the huge N5trillion debt.
Analysts opined that the agency is not doing enough in its loan recovery duties and instead blames its failure on other agencies of the government.
Despite the poor performance of the agency, President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2020, renewed the appointment of Kuru and also reappointed Mr. Eberechukwu Uneze and Mr. Aminu Ismail as executive directors of the corporation for a final term of five years. Their reappointment was confirmed in February 2021 by the Senate.
However, analysts have expressed concerns about the abysmal performances by AMCON and the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the two institutions carrying out similar functions, and urged the government to either scrap one or merge the two and appoint a more competent person at the helm.
A former Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke had in 2016, called on the federal government to merge the two agencies, pointing out that sustaining both institutions is wasteful as they have similar mandates.
Besides she said the government was gradually killing the banking industry as AMCON and the NDIC are being funded by banks using depositors’ funds.
She said: “AMCON and the NDIC are taking so much money from the banks. Depositors are getting less returns on their deposits as a result of this. Keeping both institutions is a waste of time, money and human resources. They should be merged and made to work.”