The recent controversial Presidential assent to the Bill for the elevation of the Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (IOTA), Nigeria to Chartered Institute of Transport Administration of Nigeria (CIOTA) has thrown the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) into panic mode.
The apparently more recognised CILT is yet to recover from the shock of being beaten in the Charter race by less-fancied IOTA.
Shipping Position Daily investigations revealed that the National Assembly actually passed the CILT Charter Bill and transmitted same to the Presidency since July 18, 2018, and that since then, it had been abandoned. More worrisome is the fact that the CIOTA Bill was passed and sent to the Presidency much later.
A source confirmed to one of our correspondents last week that the President never refused assent nor returned the CILT Bill to the National Assembly.
“We had to get to the Presidency, since July last year, the Bill was not returned to the National Assembly, Look at how someone used his personal relationship to truncate the dream of an Institute that is the rallying point for stakeholders in the transport and logistics chain”, he said.
“What is IOTA, with no structures, no membership, they even approached us to join them in their pursuit, but as at that time, we had gone very far”, he added.
Shipping Position Daily confirmed that the controversial CIOTA Bill was transmitted to the Presidency for assent in the twilight of the life of the last National Assembly.
Our source confirmed that the CIOTA Bill was sent to the President by the Clerk of the National Assembly on May 24, 2019. It was received on May 31st. The source added that the President was to sign the Bill on May 3, but shifted it by himself to June 24, 2019.
A highly-placed source in the embattled CILT confirmed to our correspondent that the institute “will not allow the matter to pass just like that.2
He confirmed that an emergency Council meeting was called over the weekend to deliberate on the way forward.
Even though details of the meeting were not available, it was gathered that the CILT has already petitioned the Presidency requesting for the where about of its Bill, which had been there since July 2018.
In the letter which was copied to the Senate President, the CILT specifically recalled that its Bill has been in the Presidency since July last year, not signed and not returned. It consequently pleaded that the Bill should be signed.
Asked about its membership strength, one of our sources said when h joined the Institute in 1991, his membership number was 200,043.
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