The Management of the National Identity Management Commission, NIMC, has read the newspaper report in the Saturday August 22nd, 2015, edition of Thisday Newspapers in which the founding Managing Director of Chams Plc, Mr. Demola Aladekomo claimed that Chams City Project, spread across Abuja, Portharcourt, Benin City and Lagos are folding up, having gone bankrupt as a result of its intellectual property and technical partners allegedly been stolen by the NIMC.

The National Identity Management Commission categorically denies all the allegations in the report and reject in its entirety the provocative and disrespectful attempt by the Mr. Aladekomo led Management of Chams Plc to blame NIMC for its poor performance which has resulted in the reported shut down of Chams City Project operations, perhaps including the suspension of the Chams Plc shares from trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange sometime ago.

Management has noted the unfortunate and unsuccessful attempt to twist facts and the sequence of events to suit their claims and mislead the general public, including the misrepresentation on the FEC approved 30.66bn three year funding for the NIMS project, in spite of the fact that Management had published audited accounts of how the amount released so far had been spent. The Management of NIMC considers this development as most embarrassing and unbecoming of a publicly quoted company in Nigeria. It is indeed preposterous to accuse a Federal Government Agency of ‘stealing Intellectual Property and Technical Partners’ from a private sector operator that claims to be the number one in the industry.

The reporter who authored the newspaper report stated that he contacted the Director General of the NIMC, Mr Chris ‘E Onyemenam, to respond to the allegations but he ‘declined’. Unfortunately the reporter did not report, in the interest of the public and fairness, the reason Mr. Onyemenam, who is himself a member of the Nigerian Bar, declined comments. For the records, Management reiterates that the DG declined comments as the substance of the news report is the subject of an arbitration proceeding that is still pending. It would therefore be most inappropriate for NIMC to join issues with Chams Plc on the pages of newspapers on a pending arbitration. Prior to this, the matter had been dealt with in three different cases at the Federal High Courts Abuja where Chams Plc and Chams Consortium Limited had filed different suits.

Management had and would continue to resist every attempt to lure it to join issues with Chams Plc and or Chams Consortium Limited, its erstwhile Concessionaire, or any other company, institution, associate or person, sponsored or not, to make a media discourse of the question of the Concession it granted, following due process, in 2007 to Chams Consortium Limited.

It would however suffice to state that Management, following repeated inquires from several well respected media persons including the reporter who authored the Saturday report, is aware of a renewed effort by Mr. Aladekomo at waging a campaign of calumny, (for whatever reasons) with misleading information and stories like the one published in the Thisday Saturday, August 22nd.

Before then, in 2014, Mr. Aladekomo had published a Lecture he gave at the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Nigeria, with very serious allegations against the Management of NIMC and the person of the Director General. There were so many other similar efforts which Management considered on the whole as distracting. It would therefore not be surprising to Management if in the coming days and weeks leading to the final hearing of the Arbitration such articles, opinions and news report will flood the Nigeria media.

Management is conscious of the fact that since this is the subject of an arbitration proceeding it cannot respond to these allegations and misinformation beyond this. Not that it cannot and or does not have enough facts to expose the underlying shenanigans being perpetrated by Chams Plc. The appropriate thing to do, we feel, and have taken appropriate steps, is to report the matter to the Arbitration Panel. Furthermore we advise the general public, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Nigerian Stock Exchange to take note, check the documents filed by the Company and more importantly to await the outcome of the Arbitral proceedings. It will not only help set the records straight, in law and equity, it would also help prove the character and intent of the personages involved beyond reasonable doubt, including especially the allegations of theft of intellectual property and technical partners, utilization of funds raised from the capital market, etc.

Just so that the public is aware, Management can confirm that a Concession was granted to Chams Consortium Limited in July 2010 and this was terminated in line with the Concession Agreement in February 2015 for non performance. Chams Plc had filed three suits in Court and these were promptly heard and Chams Plc agreed with the Court ruling to revert to the Arbitration process which is currently ongoing. Therefore the allegation that NIMC had used ‘federal might’ to frustrate its effort and deny it justice at the Courts is malicious, provocative and intended to give a bad impression and mislead the public about the operations and conduct of the Management of the NIMC.