“THERE WON’T BE PEACE IN CRFFN UNTIL…..” Dr Boniface Aniebonam
For the first time since the face-off over verification, founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, Dr Boniface Aniebonam spoke last week; both in his capacity as a frontline freight forwarder and as the founder of NAGAFF. In an apparent response to series of insinuations and disagreement, he chose to speak with me in the early hours of Tuesday last week at the popular NAGAFF village. And as usual, as early as it was, the ‘village’ was already bubbling with young freight forwarders.
Why do you maintain a stance against the verification exercise?
I think we have passed this stage now and we should not forget that we are elders in the industry, most importantly is the fact that we all realize that this is an Act of the National Assembly and those that are charged with such responsibilities to implement the Act are novices, in order words every body is learning and that is why we have the saying that the journey of one thousand miles starts with a step.
Are you not worried that people may misconstrue your stand against verification hat there is something personal about it?
I wouldn’t want to believe that anybody could say I am opposed to the verification, what I try to say is that as a leader in the industry and as the founder of an organization that is involved in freight forwarding practice, somebody who is involved in public policy advocacy as far as the maritime transport is concerned and we are in a country that talks about the rule of law, therefore everything we try to do we try the best to make sure it falls in line with the law because that is the essence of the law. What I am trying to say is that there is a shift now from agency work to professionalism. License customs clearing; under section 153, 154, 155 is a fragment of the transportation chain that makes it possible for goods and services to move from points across international frontiers down to the owner’s warehouse, a license customs agent is specialized in customs matters, but a freight forwarder moves out of that because he is a total logistics manager, so we are building that profession and this is what I try to tell anybody who cares to listen.
You are yet to talk about verification
Now if you want me to talk about verification, it is not so easy to go there for now, but all I will try to let you know is that on the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding, the intendment of the Act is quite clear as you can see from the title that individuals and persons are to acquire skill and knowledge. Section 21 also talks about who and who are to constitute members of the council and they are 40 in number, in law when the word “shall” is used it means that it is compulsory, in our Council today we have only 25 out of the 40 which have not made up to at least two third of the majority and therefore a forum has not been formed, so it is as good as saying that the Governing Council has not been established and in that case, any action taken by the council members at this moment is null and void and that is one of the reasons why we have to approach the courts, as regards the composition of the council. If you really want to be honest in the whole process, for instance the current chairman of the council; Tony Iju Nwabunike was the former secretary general of ANLCA, Ernest Elochukwu a member of the council was the former president of ANLCA, Olayiwola Shittu that was appointed by the minister currently is the president of ANLCA, Peter Obi is a former chairman of ANLCA in Apapa port, Onyemelukwe; also a member is from ANLCA. Out of eight of them only one member is from the airport and logistics. You will now find out that the Act has completely derailed because the intendment of this Act is to bring all these associations together under one umbrella and this is part of the reasons why you see the central working committee saying that the Act is no longer achieving its objective. The Act which established the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding is distinct from the Customs and Excise Management Act.
One would expect you to support the Governing Council knowing that it’s still in the learning process.
You will recall that after the election in Abuja about two years ago, despite the fact that it was clearly rigged, we kept quiet. Members of NAGAFF (who we know are individual practitioners) went there with intent to stand in for elections, but what we got there was a very big surprise that the register that was used in that election was based on corporate membership which is basically for companies that may have been licensed by the customs. But, the most unfortunate thing was that when we got to Abuja we discovered that the so called corporate bodies were not so, they were not companies associated with freight forwarding in Nigeria because what we saw were some urchins from garages around that place carrying voters cards to the extent that arrests where made, about two people were arrested and handed over to the police and till today nobody knows what happened. You will recall that Lucky Amiwero went to court, so some of us have played our own part just to agree with your own reason that there is need to allow the council to grow, but increasingly the council has continued to make mistakes even internally and after the eight members were elected, the internal election that brought in Tony Iju you will agree with me that in that very election, it was said that if you are a serving president of an association, you will not be qualified to contest for the chairmanship of the Council. I don’t know where some of these inputs were coming from, who is bringing in these things contrary to the CRFFN Act, so increasingly things are going wrong.
What is wrong with verification?
What are you verifying? The more than 400 people who represented the corporate bodies that voted- in those eight members, if you are talking about verification, then what happens to those corporate entities that voted? Suppose that you disqualify any of them by virtue of verification exercise, which means it nullifies your own election because somebody who is not fit or proper to vote you in has done so, in order words at that point in time, there was no verification exercise. Again, I told you that the article of memorandum of the various companies that voted through their representatives, no body have actually gone to the Corporate Affairs Commission to know whether those companies actually exist, so a lot of things have gone wrong but we still live with it. But I think that the worst scenario now is what we are getting from the Minister of Justice where we are being told that a letter was written asking for interpretation as to issue of the 15 vacant seats and all that, and one begin to wonder again why should the Council write a letter to the Minister of Justice? Even if they did then there was no point making it public because they should have known by now that the honourable minister of justice do not have powers to make an interpretation. Some people are playing some game that we do not understand and this is one of the reasons we have to approach the court now.
Some people have alleged that the Nigerian Shippers’ Council did not midwife the CRRFN in a correct manner, do you share that believe?
The Shippers’ Council is being supervised by human beings who are subject to mistakes, but I think what is important is our capacity to correct mistakes when they occur. This is not the time to blame anybody, but I know that whatever shippers’ council has done particularly the leadership of Captain Biu, is done in good faith, but I don’t want to say anything more than that because I can tell you from my vantage position that a lot of things are going wrong as far as I am concerned.
As it is now, verification has actually ended, how many NAGAFF members went for verification?
I did not go for verification and I cannot go for verification, but we are law abiding citizens and don’t forget that I am a leader in this industry, people like Prince Taiye Oyeniyi never went for verification, Aare Sani Shittu never went for verification as well as Chief Austin Kelly, we are leaders. But when the minister said that we should go and verify we are not in the position to say no, he is the honourable minister of the federal republic and we should be seen to respect him. You will agree with me that immediately we lifted the veil in terms of the boycott, you could see that a greater number went in for verification. But the funny aspect of it is that the verification that is on-going now is about individual members other than corporate bodies, so you can see fundamentally that there was a mistake from the time elections were conducted, there was a big mistake and I strongly believe that we are going to approach the court and we’ll see how it goes. It’s like saying that there is no council at this moment.
Is the Court the last option under these circumstances?
Of course, it should be the court, but I am aware that the Central Working Committee is thinking about something else because they believe the council belongs to them and those 400 plus who actually voted the eight people into this elective positions are thinking of something else using the mandate of the people. But there are options to go and see the minister, a letter has been written to the minister that they want to see him to enable them tell him about their problems, somebody was here saying that from his vantage position the minister does not want to see the central working committee members and one begins to wonder why somebody in Lagos is talking about a minister that may have just got back from China, this is the kind of propaganda you see in the port, trying to instigate people to say things that are irrelevant. I believe that the honourable minister of transport; if he is a great leader will know that there is need to see the people because these are the people you are governing, I am also aware that the central working committee are not troublesome people, they have tried to reach out to the council and the chairman of the council, I am aware that by Monday a meeting is coming up for them to sit down and look at the issues. If all these options fail then, I am sure that the central working committee may go differently as opposed to what NAGAFF wants to do, we want to go to court to ask for an interpretation as to the way the council is being administered and if we get it right then it is as good as there was no election. Like I said, don’t forget that Lucky is also in court, he himself have not verified nor registered and whether you like it or not Lucky is somebody that we also know in the port although sometimes he could do one or two things that one may not understand, but yet we will give it to him.
The CRFFN itself has questioned the legality of the Central Working Committee, and that is probably why the minister does not want to recognise it.
I am sure you are not speaking for the minister of transport, because he is dealing with Joint Action Committee of Freight Forwarders where the president of NAGAFF, Eugene Nweke, National Council, Ejiofor and the president of ANLCA; Olayiwola Shittu are operating. It was the letter they wrote under JACOFF that necessitated the task force in which they are members. What I think is happening is mere propaganda, don’t forget that we are in a democracy and section 39 and 40 of the Nigerian constitution has given the authority and power for people to freely associate. If all these associations: NAGAFF, AREFF, NAFFAC and ANLCA have decided to come under a name, knowing fully well that there is statutorily a regulatory body that is known in law, the central working committee is just a platform for all of them to meet together, just like in the national working committee of my great party; the New Nigerian Peoples Party, we have the national working committee of the PDP, are they registered? But people go into propaganda and blackmail, I even wonder when someone like Prince Olayiwola Shittu was making such a statement, I am surprised that the registrar was also making such statements that the CRFFN does not recognize the central working committee, that will show you the negative mind that is actually in some of these people and it is most unfortunate.
I want your sincere responses to this: In all of these, do you nurse the ambition of going into the governing council of CRFFN?
I have retired and resigned from all association activities, I am speaking to you now as the lead consultant of NAGAFF Integrated Services and my services have been retained by the central working committee of freight forwarders. As far as we are concerned, the truth of the matter is that there is an urgent need for those people who are running the council to think twice, the section 5 of the Act has given the minister of transport the powers to give direction and character to the council and so what the central working committee people are asking for is very simple and that is that the 15 vacant seats in the council be allocated to the five associations that have been accredited provisionally
Is that democratic?
It is, what do you mean by democracy? It is about consensus, when you talk about democracy must you stay in a place and vote when stakeholders can come together.
But the Act says elections.
No, that is exactly what I am saying, the Act has given you an opportunity, the Council will still seat down and define who is a freight forwarder, what the council has given you is a general definition of who is a freight forwarder in Nigeria, when they are formally constituted, they will give a definition of who is a freight forwarder, who is supposed to be a member and who is supposed not to be, all these things have to be opened. So when you talk about being democratic, it is neither here nor there because what is needed is for the stakeholders to come and sit down to fashion out a way which they will all agree on and take it up. Schedule 3 of the Act says that the Shippers Council in consultation with freight forwarders will conduct the first election, yet we sat with the shippers council and held a meeting where we agreed that individual and corporate members should be allowed to register, but what we got at the elections was only corporate bodies which favoured only the Association of Nigerian License Customs Agents, so there is something that is wrong somewhere, but we will not go into that now, as far as we are concern a forum has not been formed, the council has not been properly established and therefore the actions are null and void. Talking about the verification, they all amount to illegality, we are approaching the matter quietly and I think the court is going to be the one to solve all these.
It is obvious that you are not happy that ANLCA is dominating?
I have no reason to be happy, you should know that there are reasons for a responsible person not to be happy, for example there has been this problem between ICAN and INAN, they are both accounting bodies and associations, but I know that both organizations have two permanent representation in the Accounting Standard Board of Nigeria, that means that at that council level, any decision that will be taken, all the parties will be involved and the decision will be taken. So, if we in NAGAFF, AREFF or National Council or NAFAC are not properly represented in the Council then a day will come just like you see the president of ANLCA who is my very good brother, but I don’t blame him because it is like talking about PDP, if you allow PDP they will be the only party in Nigeria, so if you allow ANLCA maybe they will be the only association of customs license agents and you can see how they struggled to transform freight forwarding to mean license customs agent. At this moment there are two Acts that regulates the business of transport and logistics in our port industry and this are the Customs Excise and Management Act and the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding, but I wonder why ANLCA people have not seen the need to go and protect the CEMA which gave them the authority to operate but they left that and are struggling with the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding, definitely there wont be any peace and they better understand that because it is a fact.
But I expect that with the membership strength of NAGAFF, It should be able to fight for a shirt….
We are not fighting anybody, but what I am telling you is that freight forwarding is about individual members which is the intendment of the CRFFN Act, individual practitioners which are the core members of NAGAFF as professionals, you cannot be a license customs agent and call yourself a professional, a corporate body can not be seen as a professional, it is an individual, and let me also say that even the Nigeria Customs Service are not bothered about all these so called associations, what they are interested in is those who come to do business with them, they will be more interested in you when you go into what I call best practices in terms of genuine declaration for custom purposes. If you go deep into Customs, they will tell you that they are not dealing with associations, Nigeria customs service do not do business with associations, so I think that is the problem of ANLCA as you come they register you, but the CRFFN has given credence to the relevance of associations hence you can see that they have registered five associations; including ANLCA, so whether you like it or not, this is between ANLCA and NAGAFF, ANLCA is leaving their own and jumping into NAGAFF and there is not going to be peace anywhere because we must defend our self.
What exactly did you mean when you said it was between NAGAFF and ANLCA?
I have told you that there are two laws; the Customs and Excise Management Act section 153, 154 gave rise to licensing regulations of the Customs, the CRFFN Act of 2007 is that of NAGAFF discussing professionalism and individual membership. Members of NAGAFF are individuals and whether you like it or not this is the naked truth, so I think we better call the bluff and look at ourselves eye ball to eye ball and get things straightened out. Even at the verification exercise, all persons there who have registered with the Council are also registered in NAGAFF as individual members because we are the parent body.
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