· “It could lead to loss of lives”, says Oyeniyi
The internal crisis that has engulfed the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has taken a new twist as the Alhaji Taiwo Mustapha faction has dragged Henry Njoku faction to the Police over alleged forgery of BOT letter headed papers and went ahead to urge the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to place a caveat emptor on the ANLCA BOT file.
Shipping Position Daily gathered that the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris had invited three members of the board for questioning, namely: Chief Henry Njokwu, Aare Sanni Shittu and Chief Peter Obi.
Confirming the move to our correspondent, Secretary of the board; Prince Taiye Oyeniyi said that if the Mustapha faction had not taken a step and invited the Police, the crisis could degenerate into loss of life.
The forged letter, according to Oyeniyi was allegedly written on 6th of April 2018, shortly before the inauguration of incumbent National President, Tony Iju. He alleged that Njoku wanted to perpetuate himself in office, describing the move as forgery and criminal.
He said the alleged move by Njoku has prevented the board from registering the name of its new executives.
He said: "We thought the matter was something we can be able to resolve internally, unknown to some of us, Henry Njoku, Aare Sanni Shittu and Peter Obi went ahead to clone our letter headed paper and wrote a letter, purportedly written by the board asking the Director General of Corporate Affairs Commission to Caveat Emptor our file so as to make it impossible for us to register the name of other trustees"
"They told the CAC that nobody should have access to the file again, it took us six months to discover this. What they have done is criminal because there was no board meeting"
"We wrote a petition to the IG who now directed a forensic investigation of the matter because if care is not taken, it could lead to loss of lives”, he said.
Oyeniyi added that already, one of invited BOT member, Aare Sanni responded to the Police, while a Police man was dispatched to Port Harcourt to go and serve Njoku, "He is supposed to honour the invitation yesterday, but he refused".
Meanwhile, in a chat with Shipping Position Daily, Chief Henry Njoku lampooned the Taiwo Mustapha faction as being jobless. He described the allegations as baseless, even as he denied haven received any invite from the Police.
On the registration of the names of the new BOT members at the CAC, Njoku said that Taiye Oyeniyi should be blamed, because he had collected money from the board under pretence of effecting the change of names, but that he never did.
He however said he was still Chairman of the BOT and that his accusers should wait until he completes his tenure which he said would be in less than a year.
Speaking further, he said, "I am too busy for all their nonsense, Taiye should go and get a job like other agents are doing, let them write to the police, when the time comes, nobody is afraid of the police". "I have not been to any Police and I don't know what they are talking about”
“By the time I finish, if they see any money missing from the record, then they would know that I don't have name to maintain"
"What would the Police do? Would they help you solve your problem? You would just waste your time"
"Taiye collected money, brought a lawyer that he is registering all the people, he took the money long time ago and he ate the money”
“Even as I speak with you, I gave him the cheque book , but he is not a signatory to the account, the signatories are myself and Aare Sanni Shittu, but I gave him the Cheque to ensure checks and balances"
"They cannot help people in Apapa and they are just there shouting association, what is the essence of association if you cannot solve the problem of the agents, we associate in order to solve our problems collectively"
"The tenure is less than one year and it would end, so what is the big deal about it, if you couldn't take the BOT from me since, why do you think you would take it from in just less than one year, of what purpose is it?"
"We would keep praying to God to give some of them jobs so that they can be busy, " Njoku said.
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