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R-L: Head, General Enforcement, Resolution Directorate, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) Mr Gbolahan Odutayo; Head, Corporate Communications Department, Mr Jude Nwauzor; Company Secretary, Mrs Oyinlola Adebayo; Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr Gbenga Alade; Executive Director, Resolution, Mr Adeshola Lamidi; Team Member, Corporate Communications Department, Ms Hauwau Ibrahim; and Technical Assistant to the MD/CEO, Mr Mohammed Yusuf at the AMCON year-end Media Parley at Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos on Wednesday
As I welcome you all to this event, I want to appreciate you and thank you for your continued support of AMCON throughout the 2025 financial year. We appreciate the fact that you honour our invitation anytime we invite you to our Media Parley. Please note that we do not take that for granted.
I also recognise and welcome one of my EXCO members, the Executive Director in charge of Resolution, Mr Adeshola Lamidi, who is here with me; the Company Secretary, Mrs Oyinlola Adebayo; and all my colleagues in AMCON who have continued to show support.
I will not forget my Head of Corporate Communications Department, Mr Jude Nwauzor, and his team, and the Management of Upshot Media – Mr Mojeed Jamiu and Chief Ayodele Aminu, our Media Consultants, for facilitating this engagement.
Even though today is a day that we set aside to say a big Thank You to everyone of you, and by extension the entire Nigerian media for your generous support, kindly permit me to share some of my observations and experiences since my assumption of office as AMCON CEO close to two years now. Without mincing words, recovering debt from obligors in Nigeria is not easy. It is even more difficult when the obligors are movers and shakers in the top echelon of our political and business cadre. Speaking from my brief experience so far, the obligors currently in the books of AMCON are individuals with the financial capacity to tie the Corporation up in court perpetually rather than repay their obligation. It is for this reason that AMCON has several cases in different courts across the country.
As one of our strategies, AMCON, under the current EXCO, has engaged seasoned consultants to carry out a comprehensive audit review of all AMCON cases across the Courts – the Federal High Court (FHC), which is our Court of first instance, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court. The good news, which I would like to share with you, is that the leadership of the Judiciary at the three Layers of the Courts shares the pain of AMCON, and deeply understands the challenge that the obligors pose to AMCON. For that reason, all the Courts have approved the New Practice Direction for AMCON debt recovery. In addition, the FHC has also created the Insolvency Units in the bid to fast-track all AMCON cases that are pending in different Courts.
For us at AMCON, the media remains critical to us as partners at this stage of the AMCON recovery mandate. It is no secret that we are up against some of the most difficult obligors in the history of Asset Management Corporations globally. Therefore, we consistently would need the support of members of the 4th Estate of the realm in helping us to educate and enlighten the public, who are most of the time misguided by the false narrative of the AMCON assignment. At the recent Guild of Editors Conference in Abuja, I listened to dignitaries, including President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, describe the media as the ‘Last Man Standing’ in the collective struggle in the development of our great country, so I urge you to stand with AMCON in our continued effort to recover this collective debt.
Gentlemen of the Media, it is important to stress that the Corporation has done tremendously well, especially when compared to other notable government-owned Asset Management Corporations around the world. Based on the balance at purchase, AMCON outperformed other Asset Management Corporations all over the world by achieving over 87% in recoveries despite the unique challenges associated with debt recovery in Nigeria. The Malaysian Danaharta, which is adjudged one of the best performing Asset Management Corporation’s only achieved 58%. The Chinese Asset Management Corporation, despite its stricter laws, achieved just 33%. Only the Korean Asset Management Corporation (KAMCO) South Korea has achieved more recoveries than AMCON, with about 100%. This was due to their brute force with which they chased the obligors.
Despite KAMCO’s recovery records, the agency is still operational to date with slight realignments in its mandate. Other noted Asset Management Corporations that have transitioned into a perpetual institution of the various governments include, China Asset Management Company, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) USA, and KFW Germany. So, gentlemen, without sounding immodest, AMCON has done well, and we will not relent until all the outstanding debts are fully realised.
However, our resolve to go after AMCON obligors regardless of their status in society has created enemies for us as EXCO. I am sure, as editors, you see all manners of attacks and smear campaigns against AMCON and its EXCO – please, it is nothing personal. We are just doing our jobs guided by the AMCON Act and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We know that AMCON is not established to operate in perpetuity, but these debts have to be realised because they belong to the taxpayers of Nigeria. Failure to recover the outstanding debt of over N3trillion will leave a big hole in the balance sheet of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Nobody in this room would want that to happen. So, gentlemen, join us in this all-important national assignment. Some will wonder… still over N3trillion? Yes. AMCON’s yearly repayment to the CBN is huge, and so is the interest element of the obligation. To date AMCON has paid about N3.6trillion to CBN as principal and interest repayments on the Bond instrument with about N3.456trillion still outstanding to be paid.
Gentlemen, for us at AMCON, a special engagement such as this with the Media, a sector we consider a Critical Stakeholder in the line of our recovery mandate, opens the window of interaction, feedback, and cross-fertilisation of ideas as the Corporation seeks to pursue its recovery mandate with its expected and unexpected challenges. If you recall, during the early days of AMCON, obligors walked into the Corporations’ offices willingly to explore a resolution with the Corporation without any lengthy court cases or dogfight, as some scholars call it. But today, obligors hide under all sorts of technicalities of the law to tie AMCON up in different courts. Some of these cases, unfortunately, have lasted longer than the lifespan of AMCON, as some of the cases started with the banks even before the loans were sold to AMCON. What that meant is that the outstanding loans we have in the books of AMCON today are hardcore and extremely difficult to recover.
But I want to assure you that AMCON, under our Management, will continue to go about our recovery mandate with the fear of God, love of country, and complete adherence to the rule of law. Let me also alert you that, as we are tightening the noose through the Courts on the obligors and deploying our strategies, most of the debtors would want to leverage the media to misinform the public. Please note that most of them took the loans with no intention whatsoever to repay the debt. So, I beg you, no matter the skewed narration they peddle in the newsrooms, kindly take it with a pinch of salt, and touch base with us because we have the accurate records, which is evident in some of the landmark cases that we have won against many of the obligors. Yes, the wheel of justice grinds slowly sometimes, but with patience and dedication, we have continued to make progress. Our cases have also contributed to the development of jurisprudence in the country with the publication of the first set of the AMCON Legal Compendium – a compilation of AMCON cases at both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal.
As part of our recovery strategy, we have commissioned some foreign asset tracers who will help us locate where some of these obligors have hidden their assets across the globe. You can understand why these obligors will never be happy with AMCON because AMCON will not back down in demanding repayment, which is a tough assignment – but gentlemen, somebody has to do the job for the country, and the lot has fallen on my colleagues and me because both Mr President, the CBN Governor, and the Minister of Finance believe we can do the job. As patriots, saddled with this assignment, we are against all odds accountable to the good people of this great country.
Also Read:Debt Recovery: AMCON Obligors Damaged The Nigerian Economy – AMCON CEO*
AMCON has repaid N3.6tn to CBN since inception – MD AMCON
$1bn Debt: Banks take over Nestoil
As you know, the AMCON Act reposes the Corporation with the legal mandate to manage Non-Performing Loans (NPLs). AMCON restructured the banks by offloading toxic assets from their books and injecting fresh funds, aligning with corporate insolvency restructuring principles. With this mechanism, bank depositors retain their deposits because they have confidence in the financial system, assuring banks’ ability to honour their obligations. AMCON then manages the acquired Eligible Bank Assets (EBAs) preparatory to their disposal. The law establishing AMCON upsets and reverses the contractual rights and securities law hierarchy by conferring priority to AMCON in disputes with bank debtors over collateral and contracts.
As media experts, it is important that we educate society and let them know that Systemic Bank Distress (SBD), which led to the creation of AMCON in 2010, can be likened to an epidemic in the health sector. It requires special rules to deal with it based on a robust structure of an insolvency regime of regulation or business rescue, liquidation, priorities, secure creditors’ rights and limitations, and transnational cooperation, amongst others. Just like in the health sector, the financial system will return to normal after overcoming the financial epidemic. This is what the Federal Government wants to achieve with AMCON.
Let me also put it on record that our recovery efforts have been strongly supported by His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-GCFR, the Judiciary, the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Attorney General of the Federation, and Minister of Justice, the Board of Directors of AMCON, the EFCC, the Police, the ICPC, the National Assembly, the Media and a host of other sister agencies of the government.
CONCLUSION:
Gentlemen of the Media, once again, I cannot thank you enough for honouring our invitation today. I pray that God Almighty will preserve us all and grant us His grace to make it into the New Year and beyond. I wish you all, and your loved ones, a Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year in advance.
