The Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) may go the way of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to recover its N5.4 trillion debt before the end of its sunset period.
The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen and the President Court of Appeal, Hon. Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa had called on AMCON to leverage the ADR which is now available for use in courts in the country.
The two justices were speaking in Abuja on Monday at the interactive session between justices of Supreme Court; Court of Appeal, AMCON and National Judicial Institute (NJI) on the theme ‘Strengthening AMCON Recovery Drive.’
Onnoghen said the judiciary must be aware of the daunting task before AMCON, which required judicial support on the one hand and for the corporation to think outside the box and come up with innovative ways of accomplishing its mission within the ambit of the law.
According to him, that is the only way AMCON will recover as much debts as possible within its defined lifespan. He added, “It is for this reasons, that I will encourage the use of ADR, as part of the mechanism put in place to resolve asset management related disputes in our courts.”
AMCON CEO, Ahmed Kuru in his submission reminded the justices that the corporation has a lot of cases that are pending at the Federal High Court because obligors of the corporation raised issues that delayed justice believing that by the time AMCON starts addressing the substantive matter, things would have changed. Hear him, “AMCON currently has over 3,000 cases pending at the federal high court. Given the litigious tendency of our obligors, we anticipate that more than 50 per cent of the cases will proceed to the court of Appeal and eventually the Supreme Court.