AMCON Blocks Sale Of Shares In Niger Insurance Linked To Governor Okorocha

According to the Nigeria Stock Exchange’s (NSE) X-compliance report for August 2017, AMCON executed a block divestment of its stake in Niger Insurance Plc amounting to 724.3 million shares in favour of Etha Ventures Limited at 0.54 kobo per share. Approval for the deal was granted by the NSE on the 21st of March 2017 with Fundvine Capital and Securities Limited acting as the stockbroker for the deal.

Who is Etha Ventures
Data from the financial statements of Niger Insurance for the year ended December 2016, showed that Niger Insurance had outstanding shares of 7,739,495,702 shares. This makes the deal a significant one as the new owner now holds 9.3% of the issued share capital of the insurance firm.

Nairametrics attempted to find out who the new owner of this significant stake was. A simple internet search yielded results that were linked to the current Imo state governor Rochas Okorocha. One search result which extensively and comprehensively detailed his credentials along with his many business interests as a form of due diligence on him in anticipation of the 2011 Gubernatorial elections, listed him as being the founder of numerous organizations, including Etha Ventures Limited. This information was culled from his CV hosted on the website www.rochasokorocha.org, which has since become defunct.

Piqued by this, more search was conducted. This led to the obtainment of a document that was published on 9th March 2015 by a financial services consulting company, further showing Owelle Rochas Okorocha as the contact person for Etha Ventures Limited, –one of its clients

Not satisfied with these results, we carried out a company search at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to find out who the directors and major shareholders of Etha Ventures Ltd are. At the first attempt, the Company’s file wasn’t found in the registry. We were told that the reasons for this could be any of the following: that another lawyer made a request for the file; the company is in caution (meaning the company is under litigation); or amendments are being made to the directors or shareholders; or it is simply lost. A search on the CAC online data base showed that the company was registered on the 20th of October 2000 with its registered address in Abuja, FCT.

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