Dayo Azeez (ANLCA BOT Member)
The solution is for the immediate past chairman, Henry Njoku to abide by the resolutions at our maiden meeting whereby it was decided that the chairmanship of the board should be rotational on two years basis which we have been able to do on April 13th 2018, five voted in favour, two voted against and one person abstained, the majority have spoken, we are eight in the board, five persons voted in favour of Mustapha. Then, Henry Njoku and Peter Obi were saying that the election should not come up for now, and we are telling them that there should be no time table for the BOT election, after Njoku has used up three years. So, in his own (hotel) room and in his presence, we voted five persons in favour of Mustapha and two voted that election should be postponed. I don’t see how the minority decision would override the majority decision. Henry Njoku should abide by the outcome of that election, there is no going back and we don’t need a time table to hold BOT election.
Chief Peter Obi (Member BOT of ANLCA)
The problem we have in the board is not between Henry Njoku and Taiwo Mustapha, the problem we have is between the truth and falsehood. At a time, there was an intervention by the ANLCA President, Tony Iju, a meeting was held at Santiago Hotel at Amuwo Odofin at the instance of the president, he pleaded for 90 days for the crisis to be resolved from May 10th, but to my surprise, on 13th of July, some gang of people came up and said they have taken leadership of the board. Talking about the way out of the crisis, I am already in court, some concerned members also went to court on the BOT issue, not that they sue anybody, but they want a court declaration. The BOT has six years tenure, so Henry Njoku has a second term that would finish next year. Some of these issues are something we can easily solve among ourselves, but I hate a situation whereby somebody is training a mad dog, and at every slightest provocation, you release your dog to be barking at me, when I realized that dogs were barking at me, I decided to go to court. Any man you see urinating has something in his hands, it is only the court that can settle this crisis, the issue has gone far, if they defeat me at the court, I will go to appeal, if they defeat me at the appeal, I will go to the Supreme Court.
Anonymous (Member of ANLCA)
The way out of the crisis is for Henry Njoku to relinquish the chairmanship position for Mustapha to take over, it is not a do or die affair, they are not benefitting anything there, they are even spending their time and energy. There is a process in place, so let them follow the laid down process. The crisis in the BOT does not concern the running of ANLCA or the chapters, this is because the chairmanship of the BOT is not constitutional, it is not in ANLCA constitution that BOT should have a chairman, the constitution only says that ANLCA should elect their BOT and this was done in Warri. The BOT members are only choosing a chairman for their own administrative convenience; this does not concern the President or the members.
Chief Dele Iboma (ANLCA at Tin Can)
We are aware that this is purely a BOT affair, and I believe that sooner than later, they would resolve the differences among themselves. My advice to them is that as elder statesmen of the association, it is within their purview to resolve whatever differences they are having. There is no time frame to how the differences can be resolved, so you cannot say that maybe the President’s intervention recently is not working. BOT is not involved in the day to day running of ANLCA and as such, it cannot affect ANLCA in anyway.
Gani Adeola (ANLCA member at PTML)
I believe the solution to the crisis in the BOT is very simple, there is a constitution guiding ANLCA, So, if there is a constitution guiding the association, it should be interpreted by a custom brokers lawyer in a language that every one of us would understand.
Fredrick Obiejesi (Sec Gen, ANLCA Apapa)
The elders of the association are trying to resolve the issue. I believe that with time they are going to resolve it.
Frank Aliakor (ANLCA)
I believe that ANLCA is one body, we don’t play politics of ethnicity, we treat everybody as equally. On the crisis, what happened is that hijacking the BoT is not the best; we know that our former BoT chairman (Njoku) had done well; he piloted the affairs of the association to the highest level. The thing now is that there is every need for another person to come onboard. Politics is a game of give and take not everybody takes all. Since we have an Igbo man as ANLCA president, we equally need a Yoruba man as a chairman BoT and they have to work as a team. My advice is let the present board members which is being headed by the new chairman have a synergy with the new executives of the association, let them work together to move the association forward. ANLCA is no longer the way it used to be, things are not moving the way they should.
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