By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Jimoh Ibrahim prides himself as the corporate surgeon and the business turnaround guru who could buy off scrap businesses and turn them around to profitable ventures. He makes those claims every time he has a speaking chance. But that’s all they are – claims.
TheNews Magazine once called him a corporate virus, a man who helps struggling businesses to their early grave. Like an undertaker, he buries them with a bold face and still claims that things are going on well.
NICON Insurance, National Mirror, Newswatch Magazine, Energy Filling Stations, Nigerian Air, are just among the many businesses that got buried once the ‘corporate virus’ took over their management. And those were companies he bought by collecting at least N69.4 billion from Nigerian banks. The businesses all collapsed and the debt has to be paid.
On November 18, the the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) enforced a court order granting it powers to take over 12 assets belonging to Jimoh Ibrahim, and frozen all his accounts in a bid to recover the N69.4 billion.
Among the properties he lost to AMCON include his Victoria Garden home which is a sea view villa in Lagos, NICON Investment Limited at Plot 242, Muhammadu Buhari Way, Central Business District, Abuja; NICON Hotels Limited building at Plot 557, Port-Harcourt Crescent, off Gimbiya Street, Abuja and the building of NICON Lekki Limited also at No. 5, Customs Street, Lagos.
Other properties include: The building of Abuja International Hotels Limited located at No. 3, Hospital Road, Lagos; another Property at Plot 242, Muhammadu Buhari Way, Abuja; the former Allied Bank Building on Mile 2, Oshodi Express Way, Apapa Road, Lagos; Energy House located on No. 94, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos; NICON Building at No. 40, Madeira Street, Maitama, Abuja; a Residential Apartment at Road 2, House A14, Victoria Garden City, Lagos; NICON Hotels Building at Plot 3, Road 3, Victoria Garden City, Lagos as well as the NICON Luxury Hotel’s Building, Garki I, FCT, Abuja.
The court also ordered that all bank accounts belonging to Jimoh Ibrahim should be frozen, including those of his companies – Global Fleet Oil & Gas Limited and NICON Investment Limited all of who are defendants in the suit No. FHL/L/CL/776/2016 presided over by Justice Aikawa on Wednesday November 4, 2020.
The court is not done with Jimoh Ibrahim. He is to be stripped of all his shares in his two companies that are domiciled in Nigerian Re-Insurance Company Plc, NICON Insurance Company Plc, Nigeria Stockbrokers Limited and NICON Trustees Limited.
AMCON said it has since taken over the assets in a statement by its spokesman, Jude Nwauzor.
Nwauzor said all the assets that are listed by the court and scattered around Abuja and Lagos were successfully taken over with the help of court bailiffs and officers and men of the Nigerian police as mandated by the court.
Unless he overturns the court order, Jimoh Ibrahim has just become a broke billionaire.
