Probe AMCON Deals, N220Billion Funds under Lamido Sanusi-Group …The Tinubu's Connection

A group, The Project Nigeria Coalition wants suspended Central Bank of

Nigeria, CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to be probed over N200

Billion Enterprise Fund and the appointment of Chapel Hill, owned by Wale

Edun, an ally of Bola Tinubu, as Financial Adviser to CBN.

In a statement signed by Olufemi Lawson, General Secretary of the PNC,

alleged that the appointment of Mustapha Chike-Obi as Asset Management

Company of Nigeria, AMCON, is questionable as both Edun and Chike-Obi are

bosom friends.
The group alleged that while Chapel Hill was CBN Financial Adviser, it was

curiously also appointed Financial Adviser to AMCON and Billions of fees

said to have been paid without due process to the Edun's company.

The PNC Statement reads:
“The Project Nigeria Coalition wants the Federal Government to extend the

on-going probe of the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria

(CBN) to the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON)

“In taking over the Banks and handling the restructuring of the so-called

problematic banks, CBN appointed Chapel Hill and Deutsche to be the

Financial Advisers. The Chairman of Chapel Hill is Wale Edun who is a

close friend and mentor to Sanusi and strong ally of APC National

Leader,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
“We need to know if due process was followed in the process of appointing

these parties in conformity with the Public Procurement Act (PPA).

“Subsequently, following the decision to set up AMCON, Mustapha Chike-Obi

was appointed by Sanusi to be the MD. Mustapha is a very close to Wale

Edun and infact lived in his house when he returned to Nigeria to take up

the job and did so for a few months even after the appointment.

“Surprisingly the same Chapel Hill chaired by Wale Edun was then also

appointed the Financial Adviser to AMCON, an obvious conflict of interest

as they now became Financial Advisers to both CBN and AMCON (where is the

independence?). This was also done without due process, advertisement or

competitive bidding as stated in the PPA. In both cases, fees in billions

of Naira were paid. This needs to be investigated.

“Prior to the setting up of AMCON, Sanusi had alluded to being able to

clear up the seized banks' debts with about N600 billion. Following the

setting up of AMCON, the company issued Bonds totalling N4 Trillion under

the supervision of the CBN without Appropriation and created a total loan

book in excess of N5.7 Trillion ($36billion) for Nigerians and generations

unborn.
“It is either that total liability had not been fully assessed before

going down the AMCON route or the figures became bloated. Either

incompetence or deliberate, falsehood/fraud.
“In the same vein, we want an audit of the disbursement of the N220b small

and medium enterprises fund of CBN under Sanusi as we have information

that it became one huge bazaar.
“Sanusi hired Africonsult as consultants to the fund .The firm with no

strong capital base and accused of all manners of frauds in the handling

of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in Abacha days is said to have had a field

day in the handling of this fund.
“Investigations should unravel what happened and how this firm was

selected by Sanusi.
Lastly, recruitments into CBN under the tenure of Sanusi needs to be

scrutinised. Reports are that several persons were hired at top positions

as consultants and then subsequently and fraudulently converted to full

staff in breach of the rules while others were simply hired without the

usual due process into high and sensitive positions on the order of the

suspended Governor. These were done while competent and long standing

professionalstaffs were pushed aside.
Thank you.”
Yours sincerely,
Comrade Olufemi Lawson
General secretary,
PNC