FG fires AMCON MD, Chike-Obi, others

The Federal Government on Tuesday sacked  the Managing Director, Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, Mr. Mustafa Chike-Obi, in a major shakeup of the executive management team of the firm.

The dissolution of the AMCON's management team was contained in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina.

Adesina said President Muhammadu Buhari also approved the reconstitution of the corporation's management team.

Chike-Obi was replaced with Ahmed Lawan Kuru as the new managing director of the corporation.

The statement named Kola Ayeye, Eberechukwu Uneze and Aminu Ismail as new executive directors.

Until his appointment on Tuesday as the Managing Director of AMCON, Kuru was the Group Managing Director of Enterprise Bank Limited.

He started his banking career with the old Habib Bank in 1985 and rose through the ranks to become an executive  director of Bank PHB (now Keystone Bank) in 2005.

The appointment of Kuru and the three new AMCON executive directors took effect from August 18, 2015, the statement added.

The Federal Government appointed Chike-Obi as the pioneer managing director of AMCON on August 30, 2010 along with Mr. Howett Adegboyega, Muhammed Abbass Jega and Mofoluko
Benedicta as executive directors, and a non-executive director, Ms. Eniya Ambakaderemor.

AMCON was created to be a key stabilising and re-vitalising tool established to revive the financial
system by resolving the non-performing loan assets of the banks in the Nigerian economy.

In 2009, the Federal Government spent about N5tn to buy the non-performing loans from banks to save them.

AMCON was the special purpose vehicle used to acquire the NPLs from the banking sector.

Chike-Obi has overseen the sale of Enterprise Bank and Mainstreet Bank, two of the three bridge banks created after the 2009 banking crisis. He was expected to oversee the sale of Keystone Bank, the last of the three bridge banks.

Source - PUNCH