Nigeria Lawmakers Expand Powers Of Firm Buying Banks’ Bad Debts

Nigerian senate passed a bill that strengthened the power of state-owned Asset Management Corp. of Nigeria to recover bad loans it acquired from commercial lenders during a banking crises more than a decade ago.

The lawmakers approved the so-called Amcon Amendment Bill, which empowers the company to take possession, manage or sell all properties traced to debtors, whether or not such assets or property have been used as collateral for obtaining the loan, according to an emailed statement on Wednesday.

The bill also empowers the Abuja-based company to take defaulters to a special tribunal to recover debts. Amcon is struggling to recover about 5.5 trillion naira ($13.4 billion) debts from borrowers since the 2008-09 banking crisis.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari asked the U.S. to support Africa’s efforts in tackling growing insecurity in the region.

Washington should consider relocating the headquarters of the U.S. Africa Command to the continent from Stuttgart, Germany, to better support the fight against rising insecurity, Buhari said in the first virtual meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The U.S. set up Africom to help countries in the region tackle transnational threats.

“The security challenges in Nigeria remain of great concern to us,” Buhari said, according to an emailed statement on Tuesday. Insecurity in the nation has been made worse by “existing complex negative pressures in the Sahel, Central and West Africa, as well as the Lake Chad region,” he said.

Africa’s most populous country is contending with a decade-long war against Islamist insurgents in the northeast, a worsening conflict between nomadic herders and crop farmers, and growing banditry. This has been compounded by a series of student abductions that have shut down hundreds of schools.

– Bloomberg