- The top 20 AMCON debtors are a window on a corrupt society
Debt, in Nigeria, is not only debt. It sometimes is corruption. That sums up the move by the Federal Government to take part of the debt recovery drive on corporate Nigeria to new dimension. It shows that the recovery of about N5 trillion from the dark places of graft in top companies and so-called high net worth persons cannot be left in the hands of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) alone.
Hence the office of the vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, set up a committee that comprises the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independent Corrupt Practices And Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the ministries of justice and transportation. The purpose is to “develop and implement new strategies that will ensure that the determination of the Federal Government to recover the money is speedily achieved,” according to a statement signed by the vice president’s senior special assistant on media and publicity.
AMCON was set up in 2010 in the same spirit as the National Asset Management Agency of the Republic of Ireland and Malaysia Pengurasan Danaharta. But about nine years down the road, and about a year to its sunset, it is obvious that AMCON cannot operate alone in its mission to help save and revamp big corporate citizens. This is so because the issue is not just incompetence in the organisation. If it were merely competence, it would be a fairly straightforward, if sometimes fraught, assignment. But it is gutted by lies, deceit and theft.
In 2013, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) advised the Federal Government to discontinue the project because it could not rise up to the financial challenges. The new committee was inspired by the realisation that a huge chunk of the debts belongs to the top 20 firms and individuals. AMCON chairman Muiz Banire said almost 67 percent of the outstanding debts are owed by that select group.
“The key is collaboration,” said the vice president. “We need a small team comprising these agencies to look at the next steps that we need to take, especially the criminal aspect, forfeiture and all that.”
The EFCC and ICPC are clearly equipped to look into the seamy side of the business. AMCON understands the histories and financials of the firms and individuals. The ministries can look at the procedures.
This will make the committee, if it takes its task with gravity; unearth the underside of the Nigerian businesses, not just the companies involved. If the job is just to look at the maggoty side of the investigated firms, then it would have solved the past and left the future to loom with renewals of incompetence and malfeasance.
When the Central Bank looked at the state of the banks in 2009 and 2010 under the leadership of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, three banks did not survive the scrutiny. But a new story of flamboyant thievery of Nigeria’s money elite was unveiled. Eventually, many big names were not only disgraced, they were prosecuted and flushed out of their cocky chairs.
The work of this committee therefore is to look not only at the commercials but also the legal and cultural undergirds of the story. How come some companies that seem to be gaining the trust of Nigerians suddenly fall into debt? Their owners, glamourized as role models, are chastened as leeches of our society.
The task of recovering debts should not be about debt alone. It should look into the state of the political class as well. The banks and corporate high fliers tend to be linked with the politicians. It is the sort of failure we see in governance that they have visited on the companies. The individuals take loans they cannot pay back or turn into profits. The money becomes slush funds to feed their profanities.
