The Inspector-General of Police, Usma Alkali Baba, has said that the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) needs the assistance of the Nigerian Police Force to carry out its duty of debt recovery optimally.
He said this at a meeting with the Managing Director of AMCON Ahmed Lawan Kuru and some top officials of AMCON paid him a courtesy visit at Louis Edet House, Force Headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force.
He said that debtors of AMCON were wont to challenge court orders in order to “waste time” which meant that AMCON needed the backing of the police force to execute its duty.
“I remember when AMCON was created, we were told that whenever AMCON calls for support, we (the Police) must support them as a lead agency of the government in charge of internal security. All we need is a letter from AMCON,” he said.
“We need to resuscitate that directive nationwide to all the AIGs and CPs to support AMCON within the ambit of the law so that the agency can continue to carry out their debt recovery effort, which is challenging because some of your debtors from experience go to court to challenge your activities just to waste time not because they will win the case. So, AMCON needs the police because as long as AMCON is concerned, it will continue to have litigations and enforcements that would require the backing of the police for execution.”
He also stated that the police would fulfil this need and will be professional while doing it. For his part, Kuru took the IGP down memory lane and the 2008/2009 global financial crisis that led to the creation of AMCON by the Federal Government because at the onset of the financial crisis, there were foreign portfolio withdrawals of credit lines and investments from Nigeria. With that, the top banking reminded the top cop how the stock market collapsed leading to a loss of about 80 per cent of its value.
With all these crises and the need to protect the financial sector in the country, the AMCON Bill passed in 2010 by the National Assembly was signed into law by the President on July 19, 2010. In May 2015, AMCON Act Amendment Bill was signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan and in July 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari signed the AMCON (Amendment No. 2) Act, 2019 into law as well.
According to Kuru, the assignment of AMCON is nationalistic and therefore requires the support of all, particularly law enforcement, which is why the AMCON boss asked the IGP to strengthen the police AMCON task force.
Kuru said, “IG, the police is critical to our recovery effort through enforcements and so on. We have been able to recover over N1.4trillion and more than 60 per cent has been due to enforcements because our obligors will not willingly come to us for repayment. So, this is a national assignment, which we cannot achieve without the support of law enforcement agencies.”