The National Insurance Commission has vowed to implement all the terms of the agreement on the handover of NICON Insurance Plc and Nigerian RE-Insurance Corporation to Global Fleet. The body also urged the management of Global Fleet to stick to the terms as it takes over the operations.

It will be recalled that NAICOM suspended the management of NICON and the board of Nigerian RE on November 15, 2007. This was in exercise of the power of intervention conferred on the Commission under Section 37 of the National Insurance Commission Act of 1997.

A statement on Friday cited a source at NAICOM, saying “the commission’s right to intervene in the affairs of any supposed errant operator is a continuum and it will not shriek its statutory obligation to the Nigerian populace, particularly the insuring public, in the event of any insurance provider operating in a manner not consistence with best practices and professionalism.”

The statement traced the events leading to the recent return of the companies to Global Fleet, saying that the commission discovered that NICON and Nigerian RE- were not complying with the relevant insurance laws in their operations. “The flaws included non- rendition of statutory returns as prescribed intervals, non-settlement of claims and outstanding liabilities, failure to procure adequate free insurance treaty from NICON failure to settle RE- Insurance premiums, the unlawful transfer of investment an ingestible forms of the two companies to third party companies whose ownership was totally different from these companies, non injection of appropriate funds to NICON and Nigerian RE- in line with the re-capitalization requirements, inability to settle numerous insurance liabilities as at when due, among others.”

The suspension was followed by the appointment of an interim management team for the two organizations. The team was appointed for an initial period of three months. However, the supposed discovery of the aberrations in the two organizations necessitated the renewal of their operations for another three months.

The suspension and the appointment of the interim management became a subject of litigation as the chairman of the suspended board of directors Jimoh Ibrahim took the Federal Government (represented by the Federal Ministry of Finance, The Attorney General of the Federation, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, the Inspector General of Police and their Agencies) to court. Instructively, the regulatory body, NAICOM, was not dragged to court perhaps in reverence to the exercise of its power of intervention.

The litigation went on for seven months. However, President, Umaru Musa Yar’adua, expressed his desire to have the matter settled out of court. It was in the light of this and the consideration of the progress made by the interim management in the two institutions that the Federal Government accepted to have the matter settled out of court.