A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has vacated an earlier injunction which it granted against conduct of elections into chapters in the Western zone of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA).
The injunction was against the factionalized Board of Trustees (BoT) of the association. The Presiding Judge, Justice Saliu Saidu of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi lifted the injunction last week.
In the Certified True Copy of the ruling which was obtained by Shipping Position Daily last Friday, the Judge said the court was misinformed to have granted the injunction on January 9, 2019.
By the ruling, the faction of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) loyal to the embattled national president of the association; Mr Tony Nwabunike has got the nod of the court to conduct election into the association’s chapters in the Western Zone of the association. But, the BoT still remains factionalized.
The suit was filed by Datuns Global Link Nigeria Limited and one Mr Babatunde Adekoya against the Registered Trustees of ANLCA and 19 others, including most of the executives of the association.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that elections into the chapters were due in December 2019, but the elections could not hold due to a court injunction restraining the board from holding the election, as a result of the crisis rocking the Board of Trustees.
But speaking with Shipping Position Daily after the Federal High Court ruling, a chieftain of ANLCA, Chief Peter Obih, said by the ruling, the bad elements who want to destroy the association have been subdued by the court.
According to him, the court ruling has ended all the problems confronting the association.
“We have subdued those bad elements in ANLCA that want to destroy the association through a court case yesterday, when the court struck-out the issue and asked us to go and do our western zone elections”.
“The court has vacated the initial injunction against us and we were asked to go and conduct our Western Zones election, so I don’t think we have any problem any longer”, he told our correspondent.
Obih, who described the factional chairman of the BoT; Alhaji Mustapha as a ‘new comer’ in the association, added that he(Mustapha) lacks the right to destabilize the association, he also said that Chief Henry Njoku remains the recognized BoT chairman of the association.
“A new comer cannot be allowed to come and destabilize us, that is the thing. The court is holding on to the Henry Njoku led BoT of ANLCA”, he stressed.
However, when contacted last weekend on the latest development, the National Publicity Secretary of the association; Mr Joe Sanni confirmed the court’s position, but added that the group should not jubilate yet.
He said, while it was true that the court so directed, it is not yet uhuru for the defendants in the case. In a veiled reference to the division in the association’s BoT, he explained that the fact that the court vacated the injunction did not automatically infer that the elections can hold.
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