N69.4billion Debt: Court reverses order for AMCON to take over Jimoh Ibrahim’s assets
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A Federal High Court in Abuja has quashed its own orders made on the 4th January 2021, wherein it granted the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) powers to take over the assets belonging to barrister Jimoh Ibrahim, a businessman, over an alleged debt of N69.4 billion, of which over 50% of the debt portfolio was chalked up by his airline company.
Justice Abang of the federal high court set aside the order on the grounds that the applicant, AMCON, had concealed facts relating to the case and succeeded in obtaining an interim order to take over Ibrahim’s property.
But the defendants which included Ibrahim, his firms — NICON Investment Ltd and Global Fleet Oil and Gas Ltd — had in another application prayed the court to set aside the order on grounds of “non-disclosure and misrepresentation of material facts”.
In his ruling on the application, Justice Abang agreed with the defendants that AMCON concealed facts which ought to have prevented his court of any jurisdiction to hear the matter.
According to the judge, the ruling of a Federal High Court in Lagos delivered in 2016 which restrained AMCON from taking over the defendant’s property pending the final determination of the matter, is still subsisting and has neither been appealed against nor vacated, hence his order of 4th January 2021, was a nullity.
The Judge further held that all consequent orders he made on 4th January, regarding AMCON’s exparte application for the seizure of Ibrahim’s assets over the alleged N69.4 billion debt are vacated.
He also held that the parties in the suit will, at the next adjourned date, address him on whether he has jurisdiction or not to go ahead hearing the case.
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