Shocked by the outcome of last week’s election of national executives of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), some chapter chairmen have vowed not to cooperate with the newly-elected executives led by Mr Tony Iju Nwabunike.
In a keenly-contested election, Nwabunike who is a member of the association’s Board of Trustees beat Mr Emenike Nwokeoji, who is also the incumbent vice president, by only three votes.
While Tony Nwabunike was alleged to have given each delegate $1000 with a promise of another $500Uafter the election, supporters of Emenike on the other hand lamented that paucity of funds was main reason he lost.
The allegation against the Nwabunike team has however been debunked.
However, investigations by Shipping Position Daily showed that both parties induced delegates with money.
Our findings revealed that, while Nwabunike had the support of contestants in his team, contestants in the Emenike’s camp were reported to have left all the spending to Emenike, many of them failed to release money, but campaigned individually.
Shipping Position Daily correspondent who was on ground to witness the election however reported that the masterstroke that brought Nwabunike in, was delivered by Board of Trustees Chairman, Henry Njoku.
Elections into the five chapters in the eastern zone were hurriedly conducted few weeks ago to pave way for 22 votes which gave Nwabunike the upper hand. He and his National Treasurer-elect were alleged to have purchased forms for all the candidates in the eastern chapter.
While all the elected executives from the eastern zone were on ground to vote, bye-elections into the Idiroko, Ikorodu, and KLT chapters in the western zone are yet to be conducted.
Nwabunike’s votes were said to have come mostly from the Eastern zone of the association as well as the Murtala Mohammed Airport chapter in Lagos. It was confirmed that all the other chapter chairmen in the west supported Emenike Nwokeoji.
Meanwhile, some of the embittered chapter chairmen have vowed to starve the new executive council of dues and funds to run the national secretariat.
A source close to one of the chairmen told our correspondent that: "We are going back to Lagos to go back to the drawing board, if we at the chapter don't fund them, how would they survive? If care is not taken, we would form another faction of ANLCA”.
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