Following the recent dis­covery of inconsisten­cy in the profit figure reported by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for the year ended December 31, 2022, stake­holders have called for an audit of its books, insisting that the discovery could just be a snippet of what could end up as a can of worms in the agency’s set up to acquire bad debts off the books of the nation’s banks in the after­math of the 2008/9 global finan­cial crisis.

The inconsistency was discov­ered on Thursday by Daily Inde­pendent, our sister publication.

In a statement on Tuesday, AMCON said it achieved a prof­it of N108.433 billion for the year ended December 2023, repre­senting a 212% growth from the N34.730 billion in the prior year.

But checks on the corpora­tion’s website midweek revealed that in a statement of December 14, 2023, there was a discrepancy as it had earlier reported a profit of N58.59 billion in 2022, a differ­ence of N23.86 billion or 40.72 percent.

There was no hint in Tues­day’s statement to the effect that AMCON had restated its 2022 account (based on a new devel­opment).

Further checks on the corpo­ration’s website by this newspa­per on Friday morning showed that the statement titled, “AM­CON recovers over N1.8 trillion, remains profitable year-on-year,” has been brought down.

Some stakeholders, while re­acting to the report, told Sunday Independent during the week that AMCON has since outlived its usefulness, becoming just another fraud and, indeed, “job for the boys,” as seen in its lack of transparency, having failed to account for public funds collected from banks in all of its years of existence.

The National Assembly, which is supposed to perform an oversight function on the cor­poration, analysts believe, may have become complicit in the rot, as it extended the tenor of the corporation without demand­ing accountability, at least for the huge funds collected from Nigeri­an banks as a sinking fund.

So far, the corporation has been granted extension at least twice.

The AMCON Amendment Act, 2021, extended the life of the corporation by “a period of five years from the expiration of the current tenor but may be extend­ed by a resolution of the National Assembly for such further period as the Corporation may deter­mine with the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria.”

The 2021 Act also inserted a new definition of “dissolution date” to mean “a date to be de­termined by the Board of Direc­tors of the Corporation with the approval of the Central Bank of Nigeria,” which means that its dissolution may well have become indefinite as it is now at the discretion of the board of directors, with the approval of the CBN.

Reacting to the story, for ex­ample, Adebayo Adeleke, a share­holders’ rights advocate, director and member, audit committees of some companies quoted on the Nigerian Exchange, lamented that although AMCON “came as a resolution vehicle for fraud in the banking industry, it has itself become one big fraud.”

He added: “It has outlived its lifespan of 10 years. But the ben­eficiaries of the fraud lobbied for its term renewal by the National Assembly. It’s a big scam fleec­ing shareholders of their hard earned income yearly.”

For him, the agency’s con­tinued existence years after it ought to have ceased operation “is a strong pointer to the govern­ment’s appetite for corruption”.

Worse still, he continued, “Its accounts are shrouded in mys­tery. Its activities lack transpar­ency. Its vision is blurred.”

Adeleke wonders why AM­CON that was not established as a profit making organisation should, in the first place, be cele­brating profit.

He quipped: “I won’t be sur­prised if the fraud in AMCON surpasses that of CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) under (Godwin) Emefiele.”

Emefiele, the immediate past CBN Governor was sacked in Oc­tober last year over allegations of huge fraud discovered by a team of independent investigators led by Mr. Jim Obaze, former head of the Nigerian Accounting Stan­dards Board (NASB).

Also reacting, Boniface Okezie, another shareholders’ rights activist and National Coor­dinator of the Progressive Share­holders Association of Nigeria, agrees that AMCON has since outlived its usefulness as can be seen in the inconsistency in its financials, just as it cannot “give account of the public money it is collecting from Nigerian banks”.

He continued: “As such, it should not be allowed to continue existing as an entity. Sharehold­ers have lost faith in that body whose existence is akin to ‘mon­key dey work, baboon fry chop,’ which aptly describes what AM­CON represents today.

“We, the shareholders, have called on the government in the past to wind up AMCON be­cause its existence is no longer required.”

For example, he wonders how many troubled Nigerian banks the agency has ever rescued?

“Tell me one if you know any – Instead, it is just collecting that statutory 0.5% of the total assets of banks which it uses to finance the lifestyle of its board and man­agement.

“Since AMCON came into existence, have its accounts been audited? If yes, who are the exter­nal auditors hired to do the job?

“Let the people know because it is the funds that the banks have invested in that the agency has been collecting. As such, I have the right to see the audited ac­counts.

“AMCON must make its finan­cial reports public because it is an organisation created by an Act of the National Assembly.

“As such, it is a public in­stitution and not a secret cult. AMCON has been a drain on the accounts of Nigerian banks.”

Okezie noted that it is sad that AMCON was allowed to remain a huge financial burden that Ni­gerian banks are forced to bear as its quarterly collections in the name of sinking fund impacts negatively on the profits of these banks and, by extension, what in­vestors get at the end of the year as dividends, or returns on their investment.

This happens, he said, be­cause the CBN debits the banks at source, even without the approv­al of shareholders or the boards of the banks.

He, therefore, wants AMCON to account for all of the assets, including shares of companies, it collected as collateral for the bad loans it board and have been selling, especially shares of blue-chips companies.

“Has AMCON ever published what was collected and sold? Not to talk of buildings and landed properties, etc.

“If the government knows what it is doing, within 48 hours AMCON should be dissolved without further delay,” he told Sunday Independent.

Mrs. Adebisi Bakare, another investor advocate and President, Pragmatic Shareholders Associ­ation, also wonders why AMCON is still in existence having out­lived its usefulness, expressing worry, like most shareholders and stakeholders in the capital market, that banks continue to pay huge amount in levies “to a corporation that ought to have ceased operation by virtue of or­igin statute that set it up.”

In this year alone, Bakare lamented, “Billions of Naira have been paid to AMCON by banks, yet there continue to exist toxic loans.

“And to a large extent, some banks have lost their licences due to toxic loans which have affected their going concerns. So, of what relevance is AMCON to the finan­cial institutions,” she queried.

She agrees that AMCON has not been transparent in its deal­ings and its account not rendered, imploring “relevant government agencies to prevail on the organ­isation to render its account and justify how money contributed by various financial institutions have been utilized and what has happened to most loans”.

“For us as shareholders, AM­CON has lost its usefulness and should close shop,” she stressed.

There are those who believe that the corporation’s loan re­covery drive has since stagnated despite several media trials of delinquent obligors.

David Adonri, an investment analyst and chief executive of Highcap Securities Limited, is unhappy that AMCON, which was established as a Special Pur­pose Vehicle (SPV) to clean up the Non-Performing Loans of banks following the devastating impact of 2008 financial crisis, “has been unable to resolve several issues over which it was set up”.

“It has obviously exceeded its period of welcome and become an embarrassment to stakehold­ers.”

He, therefore, calls for an “or­derly wind-up” which, he says, “has become inevitable”.

Continuing, Adonri says: “The disparity in financial figures between its 2022 profit reported in December 2023 and that reported in 2024 needs to be probed further to ascertain if adjustments were made after publication in 2023.

“If, as stated, that the accounts have not been audited, that will be very surprising because, as a government establishment, the Auditor General of the Federa­tion has statutory responsibility for the annual audit.”

He pointed out that there was precipitous decline in stake­holder confidence in AMCON “during President Muhammadu Buhari’s disastrous administra­tion when tribal sentiment was used to manage public affairs and accountability was sacri­ficed”.

It is however not known whether the National Assembly will have the political will to call for an audit of the agency’s books and, indeed, its collections over the years running into sev­eral billions of Naira, given the established romance between committees of both chambers saddled with oversight function and AMCON.