Highly indebted business mogul and founder Ibrahim is the founder of Global Fleet Group, a conglomerate based in Nigeria with business interests and subsidiaries in neighboring West African countries, was among the 109 senators sworn in into Nigeria’s upper legislature on June 13th, 2023.
He will be representing Ondo South Senatorial District in the red chamber.
He won his election under the umbrella of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25, 2023, general election polling a total of 110,665 votes to defeat his main rival, the former deputy governor of the state, Agboola Ajayi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 65, 784 votes.
It will be recalled that his companies owe the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria a N69-billion ($165 million) debt, which the agency claims Ibrahim “has no intention whatsoever to pay”, in a statement in 2020.
According to the statement by its spokesman, Jude Nwauzor, AMCON had announced the takeover of Ibrahim’s assets, located in Lagos and Abuja following the order of Justice R.M. Aikawa of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division.
According to Nwauzor, in compliance with the enforcement order of the court, AMCON took possession of “all 12 properties” including the following the building of 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.
Others are 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.
To add salt to the injury, the court also ordered the freezing of all accounts belonging to “Barrister Jimoh Ibrahim” and his companies, including Global Fleet Oil & Gas Limited and NICON Investment Limited.
Well, all that was verbosity, said Ibrahim, who countered the order, saying: “The order is discharged already as Union Bank is owing us £220m. That is over N150 billion; four times over what AMCON is claiming. So, AMCON is pursuing nothing. An interim order lasts 14 days and tomorrow (Friday) is 14 days. It is of no effect.” So why is he not paying up his hue debt?
Ibrahim, a self-acclaimed Harvard-trained lawyer, tried to make a career by buying up distressed companies and turning them around. However, he has ended up further running down the companies that he acquired and rendering them comatose, hence earning himself the sobriquet, “The Undertaker,” in Nigerian corporate and social circles.
Ibrahim has been variously described by his admirers and otherwise as an ‘undertaker,’ pointing to the many seemingly dead or dying firms he had taken over with a grandiose pledge to not only revive them but to make them some of the best-run organizations in Nigeria. Nobody is deceived anymore.
No doubt, Ibrahim’s CV is very rich with unwieldy ‘job experiences’ that include the acquisition of EAS Airline, VGC Communications Ltd, NICON, Nigeria Re, NICON Luxury Hotel, Meridian Hotel, Air Nigeria, National Mirror, Newswatch, and course his Global Fleet Industries.
