Story by Dili Utomi.
The ranks of the Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents simply known as ANLCA has been embroiled in turmoil for the most part of six years now, or so does the average onlooker thinks, but recently, there seems to have been some level of peaceful co-existence among members.
A group of journalists who observed that some non-members of the association had said that “the recent peace in ANLCA is that of the graveyard and ANLCA is dead and buried” went to seek the opinion of an active member of the association who is also contesting membership of their board of trustees.
Mr. Babatunde Mikhail Abdulazeez is a front line member of the ANLCA, a freight forwarder of repute with an over thirty years experience in the business, a longstanding service to the association as an electoral committee chairman and the immediate past general secretary of the body. He spoke at length, but candidly on the matters concerning the reputed oldest freight forwarding association in Nigeria which celebrates it seventieth year as a body this year having been formed in 1954.
On the confusion that seems to be tearing the once greatly admired association apart, Mr. Abdulazeez says that there is no confusion withing the ranks of ANLCA at all, but just misunderstanding. He expatiated that ANLCA is a body that is premised on corporate participation, that ANLCA does not recognise individual membership, but only corporate membership as recognised by the constitution of the association. He also explained that a company can recommend as many persons as possible to represent the company at the association, but that there is certainly no individual membership.
He said “When you have such a situation, you will agree with me that membership will be based on equality, because the member company is registered with Corporate Affairs Commission and the only proviso that makes the registered company a member of ANLCA is your Customs licence. In ANLCA, we are all licenced by the Nigeria Customs Service, so we all have our faces. Therefore, every notable face or name or mediator that is in ANLCA, is representing a company. Again, when we are discussing as individuals, you come with an interest as a company which is percolated into an association and therefore, there is bound to be action and reaction, may be friction. When I am representing my company, I will say this is my take and that take is what I present at ANLCA and some other persons from other companies come with their takes resulting in pushing and shoving which you call confusion. What you see in ANLCA is ideas from different companies to interact to see who has the strongest points and the most beneficial way of doing things”.
“Sometimes people say that there are crises in ANLCA, but I say that these are not crises, but distractions as far as I know because the constitution of the association is germane. The first thing that ANLCA does if you want to enroll is to give you a copy of the constitution to go and read and check if you want to be part of this rules of engagement, that is what is under section 2 and all other areas of the constitution, if you adhere to them, then you are good to be a part of it all. You can always be called back to the constitution even as an executive member and referred to the constitution if you want to go beyond the provision. Section 26 talks about arbitration, that if you have any grouse or issue to settle, it provides that you refer exhaustively to the constitution which takes care of all internal mechanisms for conflict resolution. That is just what is playing out in ANLCA which does not exist in other associations. Every other maritime association is about, I hire you and I fire you, but that is not the case in ANLCA”.
Speaking generally about the issues with the association, the managing director of Mickey Excellency Nigeria Limited said that the ANLCA is coming from a journey of distractions of over five years and that they have new national executive committee members that is in charge of the affairs of the association headed by Mr. Emenike Nwokeoji who has come in with what you would call a policy of restoration of ANLCA back to its glory and back from the confusion. The president is doing his best to guide the association as much as he can, having been in power for almost a year now, he said.
The journalists asked the former secretary which constitution that ANLCA is working with now, his answer is that the working constitution is the one that is domiciled with the Corporate Affairs Commission because at one of the sittings meant to broker peace among members at the period of the confusion, he was asked as the secretary which of the constitution is domiciled with the CAC and because they had not been able as at that time to swap the new constitution at the CAC, the old one specifying a four years tenure of two maximum tenures (2013) was what was available at the CAC then, the executive committee members of the association then had to revert to that particular constitution. The constitution that was changed to allow for only one tenure of five years was not submitted at the CAC at the time because of various litigations at the courts, Mr. Abdulazeez explained.
He went further to say that of course the constitution can always be amended at any annual general meeting and whatever issues that is pending can always be resolved. Right now, he said, the president has the full cooperation of members and he says that he does not think that there is much of any dissenting voice.
Administratively Mr. Abdulazeez went down memory lane to highlight the positions that he had held at the ANLCA over the past thirty years having started as the secretary of the Apapa chapter of the association in 2009 after which he held the longest serving position as the association’s electoral commission chairman (ASECO) from 2010 for seven years until 2017 and he then later contested to be the general secretary of the association in 2018. He added that he was also at the head of the team that put together the members database while serving as the association’s electoral commission chairman and since then no election has been overturned because of the tight nature of all the needed personal data of all members of that association.
Mr. Abdulazeez also added that when the tenure of Chief Tony Iju Nwabunike ended, he was asked to be the sole administrator of the association between April and September 2023 until the election that brought in the current executive committee members as stated and that he has also been asked by the president now to act as the chairman, international relations and biometrics.
On the matter of whether ANLCA is dead or in the doldrums, he asked a rhetorical question, who has filled the vacuum or void purportedly left behind? He affirmatively stated that ANLCA is strong and running and that the association will continue to wax stronger by the day. Whoever says that ANLCA is dead must be a fool, he said emphatically. He affirmed that any maritime related gathering always requires the presence of ANLCA and that the association is more relevant than ever before.
Mr. Abdulazeez admonished all members to always try to play by the rule according to their guiding rule book which is the constitution and that everyone should know the difference between he who runs the day to day activities of the association (the executive committee members) and the board of trustees that hold the property of the association in trust for members. He reiterated his intention to contest the membership of the board of trustees of ANLCA.
The former secretary aslo delved into the matter of the present situation of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN). He declared that at a point in time, all practitioners felt that they needed some kind of body that regulates the activities of freight forwarders, but that the body missed its steps when it started having all manners of civil servants coming in with the government hijacking the agency and suddenly it became all about the Practitioners Operating Fees (POF) and CRFFN became a revenue generating agency.
“There was also an agreement about how that POF should be shared, but that itself has not seen the light of the day. The CRFFN is supposed to train and retrain practitioners, but that duty has obviously been shelved thereby putting them in this present quandary that they have found themselves. They have to go back to the basis to the reason why they were initially formed. It was no longer a rumour that people fight tooth and nail to be members of the board. They collect two thousand two hundred naira per forty foot container and one thousand two hundred naira per twenty four container as at this moment, though I learnt that the money now goes into the federation account and that CRFFN may not have access to the money that they need to run their affairs”. He asked journalists to probe into the running of the CRFFN and get more information about them.
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