Finance Minister Taiwo Oyedele has been urged to reject political pressure over regulatory action against Senator Jimoh Ibrahim’s Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation and NICON Insurance, with former insurance regulator Mohammed Kari warning that exemptions could weaken competition and the credibility of Nigeria’s capital rules.
Dispute over licences and recapitalisation
Kari, a former managing director of the Nigerian National Reinsurance Corporation, Nigeria Re-Insurance and NICON Insurance, made the appeal on Thursday. He also previously served as a commissioner at the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and addressed his comments in a letter to Oyedele.
NAICOM revoked the licence of Nigeria Re-Insurance and left NICON off the list of insurers that had satisfied the recapitalisation conditions under the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025. Both companies strongly contested the regulator’s decision and took NAICOM to court.
The dispute escalated when the Ministry of Finance directed NAICOM to halt enforcement of recapitalisation fees against the two companies. The instruction was contained in a letter dated August 6, 2026, signed by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Raymond Omachi.
In response, Kari called on Oyedele and the ministry to avoid political involvement in the enforcement measures. He said NAICOM should be allowed to apply the law and statutory standards independently.
Concerns over equal treatment
Kari argued that enabling the affected insurers to use political channels to escape regulatory obligations would damage the principle of equal competition across the insurance market.
He said meaningful reform would require more than legislation if Nigeria wanted its insurance industry to compete internationally. In his view, every market participant must operate under rules that are fair, transparent and applied consistently.
Kari said NICON and Nigeria Re-Insurance had again appealed to the ministry for political assistance to avoid regulatory obligations. He described that approach as creating an uneven market in which companies that complied with the law were disadvantaged while long-established institutions received preferential treatment.
He noted that the Federal Government created NICON in 1969 and Nigeria Re-Insurance in 1977. The institutions initially played a central role by keeping premium funds within Nigeria, insuring public-sector assets and building domestic professional expertise.
However, Kari said both companies lost their leading positions after being privatised in the mid-2000s. He alleged that they later experienced governance shortcomings, high leverage, weak balance sheets and outstanding claims.
Industry compliance and regulatory independence
Kari said the wider insurance market had shown that meeting the new capital thresholds was possible. He pointed to the following steps taken by more than 90 percent of operators:
- Raising additional capital in accordance with the statutory process.
- Placing the required reserves with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
- Completing regulatory verification.
- Paying the applicable regulatory fees.
By contrast, he alleged, NICON and Nigeria Re-Insurance had sought special treatment through political avenues, asking the ministry to suspend regulatory instructions, capital examinations and escrow obligations.
Applying compliance rules to most insurers while allowing a small number to treat them as optional would, Kari warned, weaken both statutory oversight and fair competition.
He compared the situation with the banking and pension sectors, citing the Central Bank of Nigeria and the National Pension Commission. Operators overseen by those institutions generally meet recapitalisation and other legal requirements without lobbying the government to curtail the authority of their regulators.
Kari questioned why insurance companies should regard compliance as something that can be negotiated through political lobbying, and why the Finance Ministry should be asked to intervene in an issue that he characterised as ordinary regulatory enforcement.
Limits on executive intervention
Referring to Sections 8(6) and 8(9) of NIIRA 2025, Kari said the legislation already sets out the process to be followed when an insurer’s licence is cancelled. He maintained that those provisions do not assign a role to the Finance Ministry in that procedure.
He therefore questioned why the ministry would entertain such a request or overturn the regulator’s decision, arguing that doing so would conflict with federal law.
Kari said executive intervention could be warranted if the collapse of a financial institution created a genuine systemic danger to the economy. He maintained, however, that NICON and Nigeria Re-Insurance no longer possessed the scale or influence required to pose such a threat.
“They are no longer the industry giants they were several decades ago,” he said, arguing that their present market presence was practically insignificant.
Kari urged the Federal Government not to create special exemptions or turn itself into an informal appeals body for companies that had failed to meet regulatory standards.
He added that NAICOM was the state-authorised insurance regulator and should be free to apply the rules equally to all companies, regardless of whether they were privately owned, created by the state in the past or controlled through an asset-management arrangement.
