Tony Iju, ANLCA president, Celebrates 365 Days in Office - vows to uphold constitution

By ZION Olalekan |

The Tony Iju Nwabunike led National Executive Committee (NECOM) of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) yesterday celebrated its 365 days in office.

This is even as the association has demanded President Muhammadu Buhari to appoint a career customs officer into office as the Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service.

Speaking at an appraisal meeting held at the ANLCA National Secretariat, Tony Iju assured that the next three years of the executive shall usher-in various reforms and the achievement of the four cardinal points of his administration.

Nwabunike also assured that ANLCA is ready to collaborate more with the various government agencies operating at the port to ensure that the various challenges confronting custom brokers at the port is revolved.

He also said “Today, i am in your midst to tell you that 365 days is gone, we still have three more years to go, and it is going to be a very vibrant three more years, together we are going to work as one big family”

“Together we are going to make sure that our operational challenges are solved, we would get government collaboration to ease the businesses of our members”

He urged members to always act according to the constitution of ANLCA which he said is supreme.
“We don’t have to do things in the old order, when you do things and think you can go away with it, we would say no to it” he said

Nwabunike also assured that the administration is ready to accept genuine advise that would bring peace to the association.

Also speaking, the Vice President of ANLCA, Kayode Farinto highlighted some challenges that were solved by the association in the last one year.

He said that some of the challenges experienced by the executives in the last one year includes; the benchmarking of cargoes at the Tin Can Island command as well as the random stoppage of already cleared cargoes by customs units mounted on Mile 2 expressway and Ijora area of Apapa.

“There is no law that allows the Controller to benchmark N1.2million for forty foot and N600,000 for twenty foot containers, we were able to stop this at Tin Can Port”

“Before we came onboard, maritime police were stopping cargoes unnecessarily, but now they can no longer do this except in collaboration with Shippers Council” he said

On her part, National Treasurer of ANLCA, Hajia Bola Muse lamented that the executives inherited paucity of funds when it took over the association in April 2018 with N450,000 scattered in three Nigerian banks

She said the administration has however grown the finances to N5million under Tony Iju Nwabunike administration.