By ISAAC ANUMIHE, Abuja
Friday, April 28, 2006

"Start counting from now, if I will leave office then. In fact, I will be in London by the time the ultimatum expires," Ibrahim boasted.

According to him, he is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of NICON Group of companies for life. "NAICOM is not the interpreter of the law and I have come to stay here for life. No human being can take me out of here. I don't care about your publications because they make me popular. I remain the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive of NICON Group of Companies.

Let the regulator or anybody get well educated."
He listed the companies that make up the group as NICON Trustee, NICON Investment, NICON Properties, NICON Hotel, NICON Energy, NICON Airways, NICON UK,

NICON Insurance and NICON Sao Tome asking if NAICOM has the power to regulate those companies too, as well as NICON UK?

Ibrahim told newsmen that there was nothing like ultimatum by the regulatory body, saying that he will appoint the managing directors for each of the companies at the appropriate time.
"When I am ready I will appoint MD for each of the 10 companies. We have not breached any law of insurance or any oil company. Where does NAICOM get its law from?" he asked.
Ibrahim, who distributed cheques amounting to over N3.5 billion terminal benefits to over 1,200 sacked workers of the corporation said while the least person collected N500, the highest beneficiary got N57million insisting, however, that all staff except contract ones indicted by the audit report will get nothing.

NAICOM had in a fresh letter to the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NICON Insurance plc dated April 19, 2006 and signed by Mrs J.I. Oroge given him 21-day ultimatum to appoint an insurance professional as Managing Director as he (Ibrahim) is not an insurance professional and so not qualified to supervise an insurance company.

The letter reads in part: "Further to our said letter and pursuant to section 13(1)(b) of the insurance Act 2003, you are hereby given 21 days from the date of this letter within which to forward a proposal for a chief executive for your company"