A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/1136/2019 has ordered the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria to take over the business and assets of Bedko Nigeria Limited and Alhaji Buba Galadima.
A statement from the corporation on Tuesday said Bedko Nigeria Limited and Alhaji Buba Galadima owed AMCON nearly N900m.
It stated that the loan was purchased during the first phase of Eligible Bank Assets purchase from Unity Bank Plc in 2011.
Since then, it added, AMCON had offered the obligor a good measure of olive branches and explored all avenues to resolve the matter amicably, but the obligor, and his company, Bedko Nigeria Limited had remained recalcitrant and unwilling to repay the huge debt to the corporation.
It added that the order, which was granted to AMCON by Justice A.I. Chikere, the presiding judge gave the government recovery agency the power to take over some properties belonging to the politician.
The properties, it added, included House No. 15, Addis Ababa Crescent, Wuse Zone 4, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and house No. 4, Bangui Street, Wuse 2 also in high-brow area of Abuja.
AMCON stated that Galadima is a prominent Nigerian politician and engineer who formally was the director-general of the Nigeria Maritime Agency from 1996 to 1998.
He was appointed national secretary of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, which was formed then in the run-up to the 2011 national elections as a leading platform for now incumbent President, Major Genral Muhammadu Buhari(retd.).
It recalled that Galadima was one of the nine signatories that signed the merger agreement between some political parties that came together, including the All Progressives Grand Alliance; Congress for Progressive Change; All Nigeria Peoples Party and Action Congress of Nigeria to form the ruling All Progressive Congress, which is the platform on which the current president of Nigeria contested and won the 2015 presidential election.
The enforcement on the properties of Bedko Nigeria Limited and Alhaji Buba Galadima was one of the many others that would happen this year given the additional powers AMCON received from Buhari late last year, it stated.
Source: Punch Newspaper