ANLCA Crisis: Farinto Urges Members to Embrace peace

By ZION Olalekan

The National Executive Committee (NECOM) of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has urged its aggrieved members to embrace Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in order to bring about needed peace back to the association.

In a chat with Nigeriamaritime360.com, Vice President of ANLCA, Farinto Kayode said a Federal High Court in Lagos has directed the association to explore the arbitration clause in the ANLCA constitution and that continuous seeking of redress in court is not the solution.

Meanwhile, some members of the association at the Tin Can Port chapter have said that the national executive does not have the powers to constitute such an arbitration panel.

One of them in a chat with our correspondent agreed that though arbitration is the way out, an independent and recognized arbitration expert would be much preferred.

Farinto said that once the Association Electoral Committee (ASECO) has been communicated accordingly, elections into the western zone chapters would kick off.

Speaking, he said “ASECO that is saddled with the responsibility of conducting elections is not under NECOM, what we only do is to pass the court ruling to them and they would come up with whatever they want to do.

“However, we are encouraging our members who are aggrieved to go through arbitration, if they continue to go to any court, either the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court would continue to return them back because we have an arbitration clause in our constitution.

“It is new things now in our judicial system, even the courts now prefer alternate dispute resolution system where they would call the parties involved and resolve”.

Farinto said that the ANLCA Constitution stipulates that before any member could go to court, there must be an internal arbitration. It is only when such arbitration has been done and the party is not satisfied that he can proceed to court.