How AMAC Thugs – Abuja Municipal Area Council – Make life Difficult for Businesses in Abuja

If you are a resident of Abuja or a regular visitor, you’d have noticed this often fierce looking young men wearing bibs stand on select road points in Abuja disturbing motorists. They are often dressed in their mufti with a bib over that or dressed in green for those who chase after Abuja taxi drivers. The most notorious of this lot are the ones that go to offices looking to extort and obtain money from the business owners. This is often done in the most crass of ways.

Speaking for a tax consultant in Abuja, they came to his office saying he’d pay N150,000 for his premises allowance, right there and then, he negotiated that same amount to N50,000. He is yet to pay this sum but that is not the issue. The issue is, if this was a fee set out by law based on certain parameters, how was it possible for someone posing as a collection agent to just negotiated it with the business owner, just like that? On whose authority?

Another friend with an office in one of the plazas in the Jabi area of Abuja narrated how five hefty looking men, dressed in no uniform knocked on the door of his office. What ensued could easily have passed for a regular armed robbery case except for the fact that these ones had no guns, they came claiming to be collection agents from the now notorious AMAC. Five of them, then one of them told the representative of the business that their money was N150,000. According to him, “because you have a large office.” This person was yet to enter the office, he determined the size of the office by merely imagining a sum, then spewing same out. He was then asked how he determined the cost, only for him to say “that is how we do it!” In the argument, after a round of arguments, the same man who started out from N150,00 right there and then raised it to N300,000 and issued a document to that effect. He went further to say, “I can see you are a media firm, so you definitely have money!” If this is not EXTORTION, we might as well change the meaning of the word in the English dictionary. Again, this was done based on the discretion of the collection agent who signed off as Bulus Aba. Mr. Bulus Aba also made it clear the stipulated amount was different from other AMAC charges, which he promised would come later.

There are several more cases of AMAC and/or those claiming to be AMAC victimizing shop and business owners in Abuja. The earlier the authorities look into this, the better for the ease of doing business in Nigeria’s capital city. As it is, Nigeria is currently one of the toughest places to do business in the world and if the AMAC extortions from business owners in Abuja are anything to go by, it is a well-earned unfortunate position.