Ebere Nwoji A former Commissioner for Insurance and Chief Executive officer of insurance sector regulator, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), Alhaji Mohammed Kari, has called on the federal government to allow a fair playing field in the ongoing recapitalisation exercise in insurance sector if the sector must flourish like its counterparts in other climes. Kari, was former Managing Director and Chief Executive officer of both hitherto federal government owned NICON Insurance Corporation and Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation. In an open letter to the minister of finance on the ongoing recapitalisation exercise in the insurance sector, he advised the federal government to resist the urge to grant special carve-outs or act as an informal court of appeal for failing operators insisting that NAICOM was the state’s empowered regulator therefore must be permitted to apply the law equally to every company whether privately owned, historically created or under asset management control. “Honourable Minister, Nigeria’s insurance sector has enormous untapped potential, but it can only realise that potential if the government allows a level playing field to flourish. “I trust that it is through this uncompromising stance that the Federal Ministry of Finance, which bears the ultimate responsibility for managing Nigeria’s economy, will give the right impression to investors, insurers, and reinsurers the world over. “By upholding regulatory integrity and refusing to shield non-compliant operators, your ministry will demonstrate that Nigeria is serious about financial discipline, thereby building lasting global confidence in the Nigerian insurance sector”, he stated. The former Commissioner wrote against the backdrop of petition written by the owner of NICON Insurance Ltd and Nigeria Reinsurance Corporation over withdrawal of operating licenses of the two companies because of their inability to meet the minimum required capital. The development prompted the minister to halt NAICOM’s action of appointing liquidators for both companies. In a sub-title of the open letter captioned “Equal rules for a maturing industry” Kari noted that building a self-reliant, highly capitalised Nigerian insurance market requires consistent standards. According to him, under the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) 2025 and NAICOM’s Minimum Capital Requirement Guidelines, the regulator established a framework to ensure all operators hold genuine financial backing to protect policyholders. “The central issue here is not whether statutory requirements feel inconvenient or demanding to any individual operator; financial regulations, by their very nature, impose rigorous demands. The fundamental question is simply this: are the rules applicable to everybody?” He noted that over 90 percent of operators have diligently followed the statutory process raising fresh capital, depositing required reserves in the Central Bank on Nigeria (CBN), undergoing verification, and settling regulatory fees, as required by the law. He noted further that these institutions did not seek special exemptions rather they invested heavy resources to comply with the law and earn their place in a modern financial sector. In his words, “In contrast, NICON and Nigeria Re continue to seek special dispensation through political channels, petitioning your ministry to suspend regulatory directives, capital checks, and escrow requirements. “When compliance is treated as mandatory for 90 percent of the market but optional for a selective few, the concept of statutory regulation collapses into favouritism. Allowing a handful of operators to play by a separate set of rules undermines the principles of fair competition and discourages the very investment needed to refine the market,” he observed. Comparing the insurance sector with other sectors of the economy, Kari said, “At no time do we witness such unhealthy behaviour in other regulated sub-sectors. When the CBN or the Pension Commission (PENCOM) announces recapitalisation deadlines or statutory capital increases for their regulated entities, we never see their executives running to the Federal Ministry of Finance to lodge complaints or seek political interventions to weaken the regulator’s hand. “Those operators understand that financial discipline is non-negotiable and that statutory requirements are enforced by the regulatory authority established by law, not negotiated through political patronage. Those models are best for financial regulation, why then should insurance operators treat regulatory compliance as a matter open to political lobbying”, the former commissioner queried?
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