Arewa group defends ex-AMCON boss, Kuru, over Delta Steel sale claims

The Arewa Youth Assembly has dismissed allegations linking the former Managing Director of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), Ahmed Kuru, to the sale of Delta Steel Company (DSC).

The group noted that the claims against Kuru were misleading and politically motivated.

The Director General of the Bureau for Public Enterprises, Ayodeji Gbeleyi, had on Friday revealed that Delta Steel Company, valued at over $700m, was sold for $30m under the Nigerian government’s privatisation policy.

While interfacing with the House of Representatives Committee on Public Assets in Abuja, Gbeleyi explained how 80 percent of the Delta Steel Company, located in Aladja, Delta State, was sold to Global Infrastructure Nigeria Ltd (GINL) in 2005, with the government retaining a 20 percent stake.

Gbeleyi further revealed that after acquiring the company, GINL used Delta Steel Company’s assets as collateral for a loan from Ecobank. Due to non-performance, the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) took over the assets in 2015 and later sold them to Premium Steel and Mines Ltd.

A report, however, alleged that Kuru was behind the corruption-ridden sale of the Delta Steel Company.

But in a statement signed by its Speaker, Mohammed Salihu Danlami, the Arewa Youth Assembly expressed concern over what it termed a “deliberate misinterpretation” aimed at tarnishing Kuru’s reputation.

The group stated that the sale of DSC was conducted in line with the Federal Government’s privatisation policy.

The statement explained that AMCON’s involvement came much later when it acquired DSC’s assets through a Loan Purchase Agreement with the company’s creditor banks after DSC defaulted on its obligations.

Danlami said: “The sale of Delta Steel Company followed due process. AMCON acquired the plant by virtue of the Loan Purchase Agreement that certain banks, as creditors of Delta Steel Company, entered into with AMCON due to DSC’s inability to pay up the debt they owed these banks, and AMCON subsequently sold the assets to Premium Steel Limited in 2015 under the leadership of Mr. Mustapha Chike Obi, the then Managing Director.

“The process of both acquiring and selling happened before Ahmed Kuru became the Managing Director of AMCON.

“It is therefore absurd to even allege that a man who took over the helm of affairs of the agency two decades after the first privatization and a sale that happened before his tenure has anything to do with it.

“Furthermore, the DG, BPE Mr. Ayodeji Gbeleyi, never mentioned the name of Ahmed Kuru as he wasn’t in office when the transaction routinely took place. Therefore, mentioning his name is mischief with the intention to misinform the public in an unjustifiable media trial.

“While we admonish those behind the misinterpretation and spreading of false and baseless allegations to desist from doing so, we call on the public to disregard these false accusations against Ahmed Kuru as they are not true but only made up to destroy his hard-earned reputation.”