Barely a week after the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) commissioned its N150million national secretariat, there are indications that the project may have caused enmity among freight forwarding associations in the maritime sector.
Shipping Position Daily investigations revealed that the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) is very unhappy with the Comptroller General of Customs on account of his financial contributions towards the ANLCA secretariat.
Barely a week after the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) commissioned its N150million national secretariat, there are indications that the project may have caused enmity among freight forwarding associations in the maritime sector.
Shipping Position Daily investigations revealed that the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) is very unhappy with the Comptroller General of Customs on account of his financial contributions towards the ANLCA secretariat.
Aggrieved NAGAFF members have however tasked its founder, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam to re-evaluate the association’s relationship with Dikko because according to them, it has not transmitted into any favours for NAGAFF members. They accused Dikko of unduly favouring ANLCA above other freight forwarding associations.
According to a reliable source in the association, the NAGAFF high top echelon held an emergency meeting last week Monday where its top executives reportedly vent their anger to the founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, and subsequently, a memo has been forwarded to Dikko, warning him that it would no longer be business as usual.
It would be recalled that ANLCA named its secretariat "Inde Dikko House", after the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Abdullahi Inde Dikko for allegedly being the highest contributor to the N150million edifice.
NAGAFF is however unhappy and it has accused the customs boss of being sympathetic towards ANLCA than the other associations.
The source who pleaded anonymity stated that: "It is not fair to us, we re-examined the performances and realized that he is not being fair to NAGAFF, he carries one portion of the associations (ANLCA) to South Africa, South Korea, India, are we not all freight forwarders? Meanwhile we give him the most support, if we want to criticize this man now, Dr. Aniebonam will come on air and say don't mind them, and at the end what do we get?"
"We had a meeting and we are on it, Dr. was in attendance and we don't hide our feelings, we have told him to stop favouring him (Dikko)"
"We sent him a memo to remind him of what he has done, any reaction he sees now should not be a surprise", the source said.
He told our correspondent that all that NAGAFF is after was equal treatment from the customs, saying that the association does not get any support from the customs financially and that it usually tax its members yearly before it could afford to pay its N3million rent at NAGAFF Village.
"We know what it took us to gather money from our AGM every year, whereas ANLCA can call him today and he will release money to them, but if anything happens he (Dr Aniebonam) will be telling us to go on air and support" he said.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that while speaking at the commissioning of the ANLCA secretariat recently, the Customs boss, Abdullahi Dikko had said that he had given approval that some of its training programmes for officers be extended to ANLCA members in order to bring them at par with the officers.
According to him, the training will commence this month at the customs college in Ikeja, Lagos.
Also speaking at the secretariat commissioning recently, ANLCA National President, Prince Olayiwola Shittu had confirmed that apart from being the highest financial contributor to secretariat project, the customs boss had facilitated some of the training programmes for the leaders of ANLCA at various times in Dubai, South Africa, Korea, Kenya and Ghana.
He revealed that ANLCA has already acquired 20 hectares of land in Abuja to establish a Custom Brokers College.
Shittu said that the recognition that ANLCA enjoys in the maritime industry today was made possible during the tenure of Dikko.
"The collaborative efforts of ANLCA in the maritime industry, especially with Customs has never been so cordial, now we gain more because customs is now sympathetic to our course" Shittu said
However, when other members of the NAGAFF executives were contacted by our correspondent last week, they feigned ignorance of the purported memo sent to the customs CG.
Some of them also refused to comment on the issue.
But NAGAFF National Secretary, Mr. Increase Uche denied the fact that the association was unhappy with CG customs. He said he is not aware of such a letter.
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