Hon Iju Tony Nwabunike

BY FRANCIS EZEM

The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents ANLCA has said that its leadership and the entire members of the association are satisfied with the outcome of the elections into the Governing Board of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding Practice in Nigeria CRFFN.

The Council had last Saturday elected 15 members of its governing council, in which ANLCA had six members and National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders NAGAFF also had six while the other three smaller associations had one member a piece, which stakeholders said was Short of electoral standards, describing it as mere sections of candidates on the basis of a sharing formula.

National President of ANLCA, Hon. IJU Tony Nwabunike, who spoke in an exclusive telephone interview, said that the outcome of the election met the needs, aspirations and the peace moves by the association, especially the new leadership under his watch.

According to him, ANLCA as an association has been in court with the CRFFN for some years now, in a move to compel the Council to conduct election in its board, following the expiration of the tenure of the former board more than six years ago, a development that made the Registrar a sole Administrator.

He argued that it would have been unwise and unfair for the association to be outside the Council when the same election which made it to sue the Council in the first place is being conducted, which gave rise to a peace move, which included the withdrawal of the suit.

He said: “The court case was effectively withdrawn Wednesday preceding the Saturday date of the election and so our members had little or no time to prepare and campaign and our association got six slots on the15-member board, to my mind is a good outing and also fair to the other five associations represented on the board”.

“We are definitely pleased with the outcome of the election. What is important now the elections have come and gone is for the elected officials to form a formidable team and speak with one voice for the good for the Council and the nation at large.

While going down the memory lane, Iju, who was the pioneer chairman of the council, noted that he was the least out of the eight elected council members but later emerged the first chairman of the Council, noting that if the current team works together, the Council will move to a higher level.

On who becomes the chairman out of the 15 elected members, he noted that Mr. Peter Obi and Henry Njoku stand out among the pack, given their huge and robust experience, arguing that both men were two-time members of the Council and so have more experience as to the workings of council.

“Sincerely and objectively speaking, Obi was the chairman of freight forwarders registration committee and so has a lot of experience while Chief Njoku, who is the current chairman, Board of Trustees BOT of ANLCA and two-time member of the Council will do very well as the chairman, sentiments apart”.