This revelation was made at a meeting of AMCON, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with the Senate Committee on Drugs, Narcotics and Financial Crimes (EFCC) in the National Assembly.
The meeting was a response to a petition written to the committee by some stakeholders that AMCON had failed to remit proceeds of Mrs. Ibru’s loot to shareholders of both Oceanic and Ecobank which later acquired the former.
According to the acting Managing Director of AMCON, Mrs. Foluke Dosunmu, the corporation is neither owning Oceanic nor Ecobank, adding that the asset management body was not duty bound to render any account to either the Oceanic Bank or Ecobank.
Dosunmu who dismissed part of the petition which alleged that AMCON had sold an aircraft belonging to Mrs. Ibru, said neither an aircraft nor cash was contained in the list of assets handed to the corporation. She said the bargain was gazetted on October 20, 2010.
The AMCON boss who also said the corporation was not involved in the plea bargain involving Ibru, added that the action was carried out between only Ibru and the AGF, Mohammed Bello Adoke, only to be handed to AMCON after it had been gazetted.
The bargain was a soft landing arrangement for Ibru after she was convicted on October 8, 2010.
Furthermore, Dosunmu said a total sum of N570 billion was injected into Oceanic Bank to save it from collapse, explaining that the sum included N151 billion non-performing loans, N83 billion recovered from Ibru and another N336 billion paid to Oceanic Bank as depositors’ funds.
“The assets which were gazetted were forfeited to AMCON. It was not meant to be managed by AMCON but forfeited to it. They are two different things. AMCON has the ownership of the money. The first set of funds paid to Oceanic Bank was non-performing loan. The second was depositors’ fund illicitly acquired by the institution. One point we made was that no depositor would lose his fund. Ibru entered into plea bargain with the AGF and not with EFCC. The court order forfeiting Ibru’s assets to AMCON was given on October 10, 2010.
“By this order, AMCON became the beneficial owner of the assets by virtue of the forfeiture. We were not part of the plea bargain. We paid N83 billion to Oceanic Bank. That was what we took the liberty to do although there is a shortfall of N16.1 billion yet to be paid by Mrs. Ibru. After parting with such money, we are not supposed to render any account to Oceanic Bank. What was owed had been paid. The assets were meant to either be in AMCON custody or sold by it. We are not liable to render accounts to Oceanic Bank or Ecobank.
“The list of assets gazetted is different from what was reported in the newspaper. It did not include an aircraft and we never got any cash. We have evidence of sales recovered from Ibru. We provided over N300 billion to shore up depositors’ funds. The recovery of shareholders’ funds is not the responsibility of AMCON. All that was done was to ensure the safety of shareholders’ funds. EFCC did not recover any property from Ibru. There is no issue of remittance of proceeds from Oceanic to Ecobank because AMCON had injected N570 billion into Oceanic bank,” Dosunmu submitted.
She also disclosed that some of the assets on the list of seized assets were located in Dubai, United States and Nigeria.
She further disclosed that some of the assets could not be traced, adding that the list did not include her property in the United Kingdom.
She said AMCON had not taken up Ibru over the N16.1 billion she’s yet to pay because it had not ascertained her unwillingness to pay it, saying once it is confirmed that she’s not ready to pay, the corporation would take her back to the court.
No comments:
Post a Comment