Legal Battle Over Arik Air's N85bn Debt: Ex-AMCON Director Denies Signing Loan Agreements

01-07-2025


The ongoing trial involving the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and Arik Air has taken a dramatic turn as Muhammed Abbas Jega, a former Executive Director of Credits at AMCON, contradicted his earlier testimony regarding the performance of Arik Air's loan. Initially, Jega had stated that the loan was performing, but during cross-examination, he admitted that the loan had been non-performing since its inception, shedding light on the complexities of the case.

Jega's revelation came during the trial of former AMCON MD/CEO Ahmed Kuru and others, who are facing charges related to the alleged mismanagement of N76 billion and $31.5 million. The case, which has drawn significant attention, highlights the challenges faced by AMCON in managing non-performing loans acquired from Nigerian banks under the Eligible Bank Asset (EBA) programme.

Further complicating the matter, Jega disclosed that despite AMCON's injection of N85 billion to purchase Arik's debt from Union Bank and Bank PHB, and an additional N11 billion extended as working capital, Arik Air failed to meet its financial obligations. This admission raises questions about the due diligence processes at AMCON and the viability of the airline's financial restructuring efforts.

The trial also took an unexpected turn when Jega questioned the authenticity of the Loan Purchase Agreement presented in court, pointing out discrepancies in signatures and document structure. This development adds another layer of intrigue to the case, as it challenges the integrity of the documents underpinning the financial transactions between AMCON and Arik Air. The court's decision on these matters could have far-reaching implications for corporate governance and financial accountability in Nigeria's banking and aviation sectors.

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AWS Outage Disrupts Major Apps and Services Globally

2025-10-20 11:49:37.758000


A major outage at Amazon Web Services has disrupted operations for numerous popular applications and platforms globally, affecting millions of users. The cloud computing infrastructure failure began early Monday morning, with users reporting widespread issues accessing services including Snapchat, Duolingo, Zoom, and various gaming platforms. Amazon confirmed it was investigating increased error rates and latency across multiple AWS services, though the company has not yet identified the root cause of the system failure.

The disruption appears to have originated with servers hosted in the US-EAST-1 region, according to initial reports. This triggered a cascade effect that impacted AWS infrastructure supporting millions of websites and applications worldwide. Downdetector, a platform that monitors service outages, reported receiving over four million problem reports in a single morning—more than double the typical weekly volume—indicating the scale of the disruption across affected services.

Among the services experiencing significant operational problems are communication platforms like Zoom, Signal, and Slack; gaming services including Roblox, Fortnite, and PlayStation Network; social media applications such as Snapchat; and financial services from banks including Lloyds and Bank of Scotland. Streaming platforms Prime Video and Crunchyroll, along with educational tool Duolingo and design platform Canva, have also been affected by the cloud service failure.

The outage has manifested differently across regions, with Amazon's own websites remaining operational in Europe while still experiencing service-specific errors. AWS engineers are actively working to mitigate the issues and restore normal operations. The company has committed to providing regular updates as they work to resolve the widespread service disruption that has highlighted the internet's heavy reliance on cloud infrastructure providers.