The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) broke its own news penultimate week that it had secured a Customs operations license, an hitherto seemingly exclusive preserve of corporate organisations and at worst individuals under the guise of being a corporate being.
It is yet another feat and out-of-the-box pedigree of NAGAFF to do the unthinkable.
By the circumstances of its birth, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has never hidden the fact of its ‘extremist’ posture.
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) broke its own news penultimate week that it had secured a Customs operations license, an hitherto seemingly exclusive preserve of corporate organisations and at worst individuals under the guise of being a corporate being.
It is yet another feat and out-of-the-box pedigree of NAGAFF to do the unthinkable.
By the circumstances of its birth, the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has never hidden the fact of its ‘extremist’ posture.
History has it that NAGAFF actually started in 2000, from the two-room office of its founder, who became its pioneer president and later its pioneer chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT); Dr Boniface Aniebonam.
History will forever remember him for fighting all odds (including frequent visitation to the Police stations and subsequent humiliation and harassment) to ensure that the NAGAFF dream did not die.
The story of NAGAFF can not be separated from the sojourn of its founder in the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), where he served, first as chairman of customs agents’ relations committee of the Apapa chapter of association of ANLCA, under the then- chairman; Mr Onyebuchi Katsina Uzor.
He was later to be elevated; albeit in the same position at the national level of ANLCA by the then- national president; Alhaji Sani Kamba.
It was from ANLCA that NAGAFF sprang out.
It can be argued that the birth of NAGAFF gave ‘its mother’; the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents enough reasons to buckle up. Were it not for NAGAFF and the challenges it gave, ANLCA would probably have been a dead association by now.
Those early years, when NAGAFF, through the robust propaganda and public relations instrumentality of its founder was enjoying soaring prominence, ANLCA was being erased from prominence.
Perhaps, because of the circumstances of its birth, which necessitated it’s being ran like a private estate, NAGAFF was synonymous with the persona of its founder; Dr Aniebonam.
It’s on record that Dr Aniebonam acquired the now-famous NAGAFF village and made it a rallying point for different stakeholders in the maritime industry. The NAGAFF village is always a beehive of activities; always home to dozens of young freight forwarders in search of livelihood.
Without equivocation, NAGAFF has since metamorphosed from being a ‘Lagos-only’ association into a bigger body, with representation in different parts of the country.
It has also matured into an emerging democracy, organizing elections into its chapters in Lagos and eastern ports as well as border stations.
Perhaps, it is this profile of NAGAFF that makes its founder to seek the unthinkable: seeking a Customs license for the association.
And, since it became public knowledge that NAGAFF now has customs license, there have been a divergence of opinions on the issue. While NAGAFF members see it as a plus and a demonstration of its leadership’s vision, others see it as a negation of the Customs and Excise Act (CEMA).Some have even alleged that the former Customs CG; Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi compromised by issuing an association with a corporate customs license.
It is obvious that, the Nigeria Customs Service, under the watch of Dikko was friendly with the two leading customs agents associations, that is ANLCA and NAGAFF. Perhaps what NAGAFF did was to take it a step further by seeking the seemingly impossible.
For us as a maritime media outfit, we think that what NAGAFF wanted was what it got from Dikko (and the Customs Service). The ANLCA wanted a befitting national secretariat, it, approached the then-Customs CG to assist and he did, and that is why the secretariat is today named Dikko Abdullahi Inde House.
Apart from the legality or otherwise of issuing the license to an association, we don’t think there is anything ethically wrong about it. We also seriously think that the Customs hierarchy would have weighed the legal implications before issuing a practicing license to an association.
We also don’t buy the argument that there Custioms action is in conflict with role of the freight forwarding regulatory body; the Council for te Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
Even though the customs action has once again brought the latent rivalry between Customs and CRFFN to the fore, we do not think that the Customs action impugns on the responsibility of CRFFN, which is a regulatory agency that has nothing to do with issuance of operations license of the Customs.
We repeat: the only lacuna is the legality or otherwise of it, and we think this can be tested in the Court. The question the court will need to answer is: Is there any difference between and association and a corporate entity. We think an association is also a corporate entity registered also by the Corporate Affairs Commission.
However as novel as it is, we have our fears and they are founded or the dangers that are inherent in an association operating a customs license. Who are the directors and signatories? Will it not make some individuals in the association to become larger than life? What happens if and when ‘bad jobs’ are handled, would Customs descend on the association? There are so many questions to which answers are required from NAGAFF itself.
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