Nigeria’s Aero Contractors Denies Claims Of Missing Millions

Nigeria’s Aero Contractors has described claims of money retrieved from Bombardier and then disappearing as “spurious” and an attempt to malign the airline. Earlier this week, a Nigerian news outlet reported that a part payment of three million dollars for Bombardier planes vanished in mysterious circumstances in 2018. But Aero Contractors denies they are out of pocket.

US man claims he helped retrieve aircraft deposit only for it to unfortunately disappear

The story in Nigeria’s The Independent centers on claims made by Femi Adeniji, CEO of US-based aircraft brokerage Nigame Aircraft Consultancy. Mr Adeniji was involved in an unsuccessful bid to take day-to-day control of Aero Contractors in 2018. Earlier this month, the airline indefinitely suspended all of its timetabled passenger services in Nigeria.

In an interview with the newspaper, Mr Adeniji alleges Aero Contractors paid a US$3 million deposit for a 70 seat Bombardier plane. But having paid the deposit, Aero Contractors and its owners, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), couldn’t put together the cash to make up the balance, so the deal fell through with Bombardier able to keep the deposit.

Here’s where things get murkier and harder to pin down. Mr Adeniji claims he intervened, reaching out to contacts at Bombardier to retrieve the deposit, but regrettably, the deposit vanished into thin air. Regrettable indeed.

“I personally intervened on their behalf with Bombardier, and they got their $3 million back, but unfortunately, the money never got back to Nigeria. All I know is that I helped to coordinate the refund back to the airline,” Mr Adeniji told The Independent.

Aero Contractors refutes claims of lost aircraft deposits

The US businessman makes a number of claims about Aero Contractors, its owners, and management regarding the day-to-day operations and governance of the airline. But Aero Contractors has hit back, denying the claim of missing money painting their US critic in an equally unflattering light.

“Aero Contractors, and the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), is totally unaware of the diversion of any $3 million belonging to both or either organization meant for the acquisition of a Bombardier aircraft for Aero Contractors Limited,” reads an Aero Contractors statement.

“In the said… publication, one Femi Adeniji who claimed to be an Engineer and CEO of Nigame Aircraft Consultancy Incorporation in faraway Florida, United States of America made the spurious claim in an interview with the newspaper. The allegations he spewed in the interview is one of those desperate but futile efforts to malign Aero Contractors and AMCON that is saddled with the difficult national assignment of recovering debts from stubborn and recalcitrant obligors.”

Aero Contractors suggested that Mr Adeniji remains displeased his 2018 proposal to manage the airline did not get approval. Aero Contractors called the missing money claims “deceptive” and “entirely created from the imagination of Adeniji.”

The deal existed, but did the deposit ever go missing?

But The Independent, which is a more serious newspaper than the trash-talking interview with Femi Adeniji suggests, had a follow-up report that confirmed the deal to buy the Bombardiers did exist, and the deposit (in this report said to total US$3.5 million) was paid, albeit not by Aero Contractors.

A private company, Lagos-based Elin Group, put down the money after it entered into a deal with Aero Contractors to invest in three Bombardiers (for a total price just under US$15 million), having already secured a maintenance, operation, ground handling, passenger handling, and management service agreement with Aero Contractors. That deal was done in 2019, well after Mr Adeniji’s failed attempt to get control of the airline.

But the deal between Elin Group and Aero Contractors ended suddenly in 2020 after Elin got its own air operator’s certificate. Ado Sanusi, who was CEO of Aero Contractors from 2017 to 2021, confirmed this version of events to The Independent. And while he doubts any money was “diverted,” he cannot say for sure because it wasn’t Aero Contractors’ money sent over to Bombardier.

“I cannot confirm to you if the money was later recovered or not because it didn’t belong to Aero,” Mr Sanusi said. “I think the company (Elin) will be in the best position to tell you that.”