Group Demands Control of more Chapters in ANLCA Western Zone

By ZION Olalekan |

Igbos within the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents have claimed that they constitute ninety five percent of practitioners in the freight forwarding and clearing sector, hence they should be given more control of more chapters in the western zone.

A member of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) Chief Peter Obi stated this in Lagos on Tuesday while addressing journalists at the ANLCA national secretariat.

Obi blamed the crisis currently affecting the board on the activities of its former President, Prince Olayiwola Shittu.

The BOT member who also doubles as the BOT chairman of a rival association, International Freight Forwarders Association (IFFA) said that Chief Henry Njokwu is the only one recognised by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as the legal chairman of the board of ANLCA.

He alleged that Prince Shittu was engineering the crisis because his effort to impose his anointed candidate to succeed him, failed at the last presidential election conducted in Enugu in March 2018.

Tracing the genesis of the crisis in the BOT, he said that Shittu allowed persons who are not qualified or known at all in the history of the association to come into the BOT.

Recall that OBI recently raised alarm that the ANLCA board has been hijacked by some money bags.

Even though he rated Shittu’s performance in office high, he however noted that he committed a major blunder by selling forms to candidates to purchase forms for N500,000 to contest election into ANLCA BOT.

“In the eastern chapters, Yoruba candidates do not care about what is happening and they don’t come forward for election. In the western zone, we constitute 95 percent of the agents in the western port. It’s not that we are not showing interest but they want to be suppressing us.

“The problem we have in the board is between truth and falsehood and not between Henry Njokwu and Taiwo Mustapha.

“I traced the issue back to the past administration; a house built on a weak foundation will definitely collapse. There are things that the outgone president did that shouldn’t have been, the consequences of what they did back then is what we are suffering now.

“Since 1954 when ANLCA was registered, there has never been a time we had the membership of the board through election and buying of forms, we usually nominate people meritoriously, and at the NEC meeting, we would cast votes for them. But this time around, the last administration threw it open and asked people to pay N500,000 , this is how the money bags came into the board, it’s not that they deserved to be on the board.

“Somebody who has never served in any capacity in ANLCA suddenly found himself in the board and he wants to be chairman, can you enter the Senate today and want to be the President?” he queried.

After the board elections in 2013, Obi said that Prince Shittu who was president at that time, ought to have approached the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to register the names of the new board, but it has not been done up till now, there is supposed to have been a new certificate showing the new members.

Obi accused Mustapha and his group of not allowing the ANLCA President’s earlier appeal for ninety days grace period to elapse before announcing Mustapha as the authentic chairman of the board.

“There was an intervention from the National President at a meeting that held at the Santiago Hotel in Festac Town on 10th of May. The president pleaded for three months grace but to my surprise, on 13th of July, some people came up and said they are taking the mantle of leadership in the board. It is not yet ninety days, but sixty days!”.

Peter Obi said he has instituted a court case on the matter seeking court declaration and clarification.

He said that Mustapha bought his way into ANLCA and that prior to the election, he was not known in ANLCA.

“I am suspecting that the past president of this association knows what is happening, rumour has it that he is the one engineering the crisis because the person he was fronting did not win.

“The way things are going now, the president intervened but they don’t want to give him the ninety days he requested for, and the outgone president is not saying anything, so I am beginning to suspect him.

“Shittu tried in office, but this idea of perpetrating yourself in office by putting your own person there is not right.

“During Shittu’s administration, one tribe took over the whole chapter, leaving only one, MMIA chapter, how can you be cheating somebody and you expect him to keep quiet?

“He is gone but he wants to put in somebody to continue his bidding”.