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By Chinelo Obogo
The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has said that as at December 31, 2024, the founder of Arik Air, Sir Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide and other companies still owed the corporation N455, 171, 764, 772.80
AMCON also said that its intervention in the troubled Arik Air in February 2017, saved the carrier from liquidation, but vowed that it would ensure the recovery of the total debts owed to the corporation by various business organisations including those owned by Sir Arumem-Ikhide.
Mr. Jude Nwauzor, the Head of Corporate Communications Department of AMCON, said this on Friday in Lagos, while explaining the status of Arik Air before AMCON’s intervention, denying claims that Arik Air did not default in servicing its obligations to aircraft suppliers and trade creditors before it was taken into receivership.
Giving the breakdown of the debt owed, Nwauzor said that as of December 2024, Arik owed AMCON N227,637,469,394.34 billion; Rockson Engineering, N163,502,837, 397.75 billion, while Ojemai Farms owed the corporation another N14, 031, 457, 980.71 billion, totaling N455, 171, 764, 772.80. Nwauzor also said that Arumem-Ikhide in some of its agreements with AMCON, agreed to the debts owed to the government agency, and signed restructured agreements on payback, but failed to honour his agreements.
AMCON insisted that it would ensure the debts were recovered and emphasised that it didn’t take over the running of Arik Air by fiat as claimed but the banks, including Union Bank and Bank PHB (now Keystone Bank), Zenith, Access, Standard Chattered, Afexim, which the airline owed billions of naira, sold the non-performing loans of Arik to AMCON.
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He insisted that the takeover followed due process and in accordance with the Act setting up AMCON. According to Nwauzor, AMCON had been part of Arik Air since 2011 but was compelled to take over the company in 2017 through the appointment of a receiver manager after several interventions failed. He emphasised that the AMCON Amendment Act, 2021 empowers the corporation to, inter alia, take possession, manage, or sell all properties traced to debtors, whether such asset or property is used as security/collateral for obtaining the loan in particular.
He explained that the receiver manager also had the option of either managing or selling off the assets of a debtor company like Arik Air, but AMCON was mandated to ensure that the airline did not die by the Federal Government.
He said: “If you recall, at the time, there were not so many of these airlines that we have today like Air Peace, United Nigeria, Green Africa, Max Air, Value Jet, etc, so, the Federal Government at the time, mandated AMCON to save the over 1,500 jobs that would have been lost if the airline was liquidated and the best approach was to appoint a receiver manager to manage the airline. That was the mandate of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“As you know, AMCON is owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Ministry of Finance and is guided by the AMCON Act drafted by the National Assembly, and signed into law by the President. That was how AMCON came to be. What that means is that you cannot play outside the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the AMCON Act, and that the Corporation since inception is guided by this. If push comes to shove, AMCON still has the option to liquidate the company and any other debtor organisations. But, we are still today managing Arik, which was insolvent in 2015 and 2016 before AMCON stepped in.”
He pointed out that AMCON since 2017 when it intervened in the airline, had been putting in money to sustain its operations, yet was unable to recover its investment in the airline. AMCON expressed that it was because the promoters of Arik Air could not pay back the debts it owed several financial institutions either in the country or beyond, stressing that this compelled the banks to sell the non-performing loans to AMCON.
“We did the forensic evaluation of Arik Air in 2015 and 2016; the report wrote off Arik as an insolvent company. The experts proposed that AMCON should liquidate the airline and move away. Even, the liquidation would not have recovered a fraction of the debts,” he said.
