Photo caption: Justice Olayinka Faji of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division (left); Benedict Daminabo, Group Head at AMCON, who represented Ahmed Kuru, AMCON MD/CEO at the event and Oluwakemi Balogun SAN of the firm of Oluwakemi LP at the event, which held at Eko Hotel, Lagos at the weekend.
Ahmed Kuru, managing director and chief executive of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), at the weekend in Lagos said the agency has made remarkable recoveries, despite various challenges since it was established as a recovery agency for the huge debts acquired in 2010 from the nation’s banks.
He said the corporation has made remarkable recoveries but still has about 7,902 outstanding obligors with a total outstanding loan of N3.142tr, of which 350 account for N2.053tr, which is above 65% of the total outstanding amount.
Since its inception, the corporation has recovered over N1.4tr had at various phases purchased 12,743 Non-Performing Loans or Eligible Bank Assets (EBAs) worth N3.8tr from 22 Eligible Financial Institutions (EFIs) covered by various collaterals at a price of N1.8tr.
Kuru who spoke while delivering a keynote address at a training session for Solicitors, Receivers and Receiver/Managers, reiterated that “if at sunset AMCON is unable to recover the huge debt of over N5trillion, it becomes the debt of the Federal Government of Nigeria for which taxpayers’ monies will be used to settle.”
The point, according to the AMCON MD who was represented by Benedict Daminabo, Group Head, Asset Management, has been made “at every opportunity that all stakeholders must view the AMCON mandate as one of serious national importance.”
According to him, the agency will continue to highlight the dangers of not recovering the debt because of its grave implication.
“The implication is that the public will be made to pay for the recklessness of only a few individuals who continue to take advantage of the loopholes in our laws to escape their moral and legal obligations to repay their debts. As a matter of fact, we have reached a point in our country where all stakeholders (the federal government, the judiciary, the legislature, and the public) must work together to fight the common enemy of this huge debt burden,” he stressed.
Reacting to the presentations by Kuru and other papers presented at the event, Oluwakemi Balogun SAN of Oluwakemi LP, said debt recovery in Nigeria will remain a burden to AMCON and the financial system as long as the system allows some Nigerians to brazenly walk into banks to borrow money with no intention to repay the loan obligation.
He challenged the Federal Government to expand AMCON’s special debt recovery powers contained in the AMCON Act as amended into a national law that would insulate the banking sector against reckless borrowers and recalcitrant debtors currently being chased for the recovery of the outstanding debt.
Balogun lamented a situation where some Nigerians in the last 25 years have perfected the act of serially defaulting in loans repayment from different banks, which he blamed on the country’s lack of a policy to guide against such recklessness.
To mitigate such ugly developments, he called for “a national law on debt recovery. This law should not just be for only AMCON as a government agency but for the nation as a whole. That is one of the ways we can curb bad behaviour. In some other economies, you cannot borrow money and refuse to pay back and go scot-free. Therefore, Nigeria should not allow recalcitrant debtors to go unpunished.”
The programme was attended by Justice Olayinka Faji of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division, Christene Clement Ende, the Deputy Chief Registrar; Muyiwa Balogun, a Senior Partner, Olaniwun Ajayi LP; Tajudeen Shola Oyerinde, Principal Partner, Adegboyega Oyerinde & Associates; as well as Robert Odihi of Dele Oye & Associates. The training was organized by a firm of Legal Academy led by Dr. Fatihu A. Abba.
