Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions, Sen. Uba Sani, has disclosed that prominent Nigerians were ‘frustrating’ the effort of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) at recovering the N4.4 trillion owed the corporation.
He stated this at a stakeholders’ symposium on “Consolidating the effectiveness of the asset recovery model adopted by AMCON” held on Friday at Zuma Rock Resort, Niger State.
The lawmaker regretted that the road had not always been smooth for AMCON, adding that for a long time, AMCON had been at the receiving end of well laid and orchestrated acts of economic sabotage.
“From the N4.4 trillion we are trying to recover, about 350 people in this country are responsible. This is about 83 per cent of the debt.
“This is very worrisome. This means that powerful Nigerians are the ones not willing to pay these loans. They have been employing different strategies and tactics to stall the repayment of loans running into trillions of Naira.
“A lot of highly placed Nigerians are not willing to support AMCON because most of those people are the ones that have taken this money from the banks and of course you know the government came in to set up AMCON to save banks from getting down.
“But unfortunately, from what is happening, AMCON is finding it very difficult because those people are highly placed Nigerians, they try to frustrate AMCON’s effort through the judiciary and that is what we are looking.”
Sani assured the agency that his committee with other relevant committees of the Senate would do everything within their power to assist AMCON in recovering the N4.4 trillion owed the company.
