According to the Spokesman of AMCON, Jude Nwauzor, the agency is empowered by a provision in the amended law to trace any debtor accounts to banks.
He stated that the new law mandates the agency to go after the assets of the debtor until the debt is liquidated.
Mr. Nwauzo who spoke to Sunday Telegraph on phone on Wednesday, said: "The signing of the amended Act is with immediate effect. It has started immediately; there is no wasting of time. Before the Act we have been doing asset profiling of some of our obligors. A lot of them are concealing their assets from us. Both laws, the new one amended and the old one before the amendment gave us the power to seize asset, what we call asset striping, so you can strip both within and outside the country ".
He further said that the amended Act also allows AMCON to go after the debtors funds in banks. "Of course, they are all inclusive, if any of our obligor have assets, have huge sums of money in any bank, it is part of what we can trace. Of course with BVN you can trace such deposits in banks wherever they are".

Many hurdles to cross
Reacting to the new law, Constitutional Lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) on Friday said that giving AMCON access to fund in other accounts of debtors to offset loans owed is unconstitutional.
He said: "The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as altered, is the grundnorm of all other laws of Nigeria, including the said AMCON (Amendment) Act, 2019 and by implication, every law must find its origin in the Constitution.
"The Constitution is also the supreme law of the land as highlighted in section 1(1) which provides:
1. (1) This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Sub-section 3 of the above mentioned section 1 also provides that:
(3) If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.
"Important to note that many of the provisions of the AMCON (Amendment) Act, 2019, which empowers the agency to gain access into the personal accounts of individuals (debtors), access his\her personal details and even take possession of funds in those accounts autonomously are inconsistent and run at parallel with sections 37 and 44 of the Constitution which seeks to protect the privacy of citizens and deter compulsory acquisition of their movable and immovable property by any agency, without adequate compensation.
"It is against the rule of law and is also unconstitutional that an agency could be empowered to arbitrarily access and possess the funds in a debtor’s personal account without first securing an appropriate order of a Court of law.
"Section 50 (1) of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) Act, 2010, is certainly unconstitutional. The section provides that:
"Where the Corporation has reasonable cause to believe that a debtor or debtor company has funds in any account with any eligible financial institution, it may apply to the Court by motion ex-parte for an order freezing the debtor or Debtor Company’s account.
"The above section together with section 50(2) which provides that the Corporation shall commence debt recovery action against a debtor or debtor company whose account has been frozen by a Court order issued under subsection (1) of this section within 14 days from the date of the order, failing which the order shall lapse, appear self-contradictory and self-destructive.
"How do you first freeze a customer’s account and then proceed to recover your debt? The customer is placed at a grave disadvantage as he cannot reasonably fight his case and cause.”
He, however, said that the old AMCON Act of 2010 which was created for the purpose of effectively resolving non-performing loans, assets of banks and other institutions in Nigeria, was never the problem or the reason why the agency failed woefully in recovering the humongous debts of over N5 trillion. “Rather, it was the failure of the agency to act swiftly to commence the debt recovery after securing an interim order freezing the debtor’s accounts. They should now act with more speed.
"To continue on the path of the new AMCON (Amendment) Act, 2019, is to cause more chaos, especially when the fund in the account of the debtor happens to be subject of another court proceeding,” he stressed.
Also speaking, Principal Partner of Charlse Iroh and Associates, Chief Charlse Iro, said that the new cannot be applied in isolation. “It does render ultra vires other existing laws on business ownership and operation in the country. There are laws the guide banking in the country and the relationship of the bank and its customers. So I see this new law being tested in court soon, good as its intendments.”
He further warned that it will not be in the best interest of the country to use extra-judicial means in the name of enforcing the new law which its provision is in conflict with the Constitution.
Speaking, Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) Eze Onyekpere , a lawyer with specialisation in development law, reforms, fiscal governance, human rights and constitutional reforms with tremendous experience in the area of public expenditure management reforms said that the contract entered by a client with bank is a confidential pact that must be respected , just as he said debtors have an obligation to settle debt owe.
"It is imperative to state that debtors should pay their debts. However, the agreement of a customer with one bank is a separate contract from another banking transaction with another bank. It is wrong and deposits in bank A should not be used to offset debts in bank B. This should only be the case when there is a court order,” he said.
Also speaking, Prof. Ken Ife, Lead Consultant on Private Sector Development to the ECOWAS Commission and Co-Chair of EU – AFRICA Business Task Force Summit Group cited the subsisting judgment of the Supreme Court, a judgment he said counters potency of revised AMCON Act.
"You know there is a Supreme Court judgment which is easily cited by different lawyers in the banking sector. The Supreme Court judgment says: If Mr. A has two accounts with you- account B and account C, and is owning you on one account, the Supreme Court judgment does not allow bank A to come and enter in to account B and pick money there because it owe in account C. That subsisting Supreme Court judgment is a case law which can only be vacated by only the Supreme Court itself.”

Enforcing the law
As the Spokesman of AMCON, Jude Nwauzor has insisted that the amended Act has come to stay and has taken effect, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, has vowed to assist AMCON to recover all the monies owed by individuals and business entities in Nigeria.
The acting spokesman of the EFCC, Tony Orilade in a statement quoted Magu as saying last Wednesday: “We are ready to work with you, and we will render assistance in terms of enforcement, in order to recover these loans, because they are affecting the economy of the country from flourishing.
“In order to recover these loans, there is the need for inter-agency collaboration, going beyond the EFCC to the police, the court, Central Bank of Nigeria, NDIC, because there is a need for AMCON to re-strategise and block loopholes.”
Taskforce on recovery of N5 trillion debt
On July 31, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo set up a task force with a mandate to devise a strategy to recover the N5 trillion owed to the corporation.
The agencies tasked to go after the debtors are the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the ministry of justice.
Muiz Banire, AMCON’s chairman, had said 20 individuals and companies owe 67 per cent of the N5 trillion debt.
Ita Enang, aide of the president on national assembly matters, said the signed law, empowers the corporation to access the financial details of any of its debtors.
He said the law mandates AMCON to: “Obtain access to any computer system component, electronic or mechanical device of any debtor with a view to establishing the location of funds belonging to the debtor, and to obtain information in respect of any private account together with all bank financial and commercial records of any debtor of any eligible financial institution, banking secrecy, and the protection of customer confidentiality is not a ground for the denial of the power of the corporation under this section.’’

Last line
However, as analysts have said the move to recover the N5 trillion debts, saying however that at the end of the day, matter will go to the court to seek legal redress and due to the country’s slow judicial process, the cases could be in court many years.
Interestingly, while the move to seize the AMCON debtors’ deposits in the banking system h

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