Notwithstanding the seeming disagreement among members of the National Executive Committee (NECOM), the National President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents, Tony Iju Nwabunike has assured that the association is set to hold a free and fair election into its western zone chapters.
In a chat with Shipping Position Daily in Lagos last week, Tony Iju through his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Barr Charles Iwuchukwu doused fears earlier raised by the association's National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Joe Sanni that the election may not hold
Nwabunike cleared that the Association Electoral Committee (ASECO) is yet to fix a date for the election, he said that a National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting is scheduled to hold in Abuja on 17th of December after which a tentative list of voters for verifications and list of contestants would be published.
Sanni had in a press statement sent to our correspondent at the weekend alleged that the current crisis among the ANLCA Board of Trustees members has cast doubts on the possibility of holding the already scheduled Western Zone Chapters elections.
He lamented that since the executives came onboard; they have been embroiled in internal crisis while each faction keeps trying to undo the another. He pointed out that many operational issues cannot be successfully tackled by NECOM because of the non-cohesiveness of the team.
But speaking on the allegations, the ANLCA President said: "The challenges in ANLCA were the ones we inherited, this administration has just been here for eight months and we are tackling every issue. But you know that in every 12, there must he a Judas."
"Joe Sanni went all out to make a public statement in order to create disaffection, sow seed of discord and whip up ethnic sentiments in an effort to draw us backwards. Severally, he has decided to be the mouthpiece of the Nigeria Customs instead of ANLCA"
"Most of the points he raised, he never brought them up before NECOM, he never did any internal memo to lay out the challenges for us to decide what to do, rather, he went out to make public statement without due authorization".
The ANLCA President also threw his weight behind the Henry Njoku faction of the BOT, saying that he was the one that would conduct the coming Western zone elections. According to him, Njoku was elected unanimously by his colleagues for a term of six years, and they are in their fifth year.
He assured that "In the coming elections, definitely, due process would be followed. Because of the pressure, ASECO has published the list of candidates for the election, but there were a lot of mistakes there because of the pressure. The candidates have to be screened and get the necessary clearance from appropriate quarters before their name will be published"
"As of this moment, ASECO has not announced any date for the election. They must get approval from the NECOM because they have a supervisory role to play. Definitely the election is going to be free and fair, and whoever wins would be sworn in", he said.
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