Chief Olusegun Oyeniran is the National President of the Oodua Maritime Forum. In this interview with Shipping Position Daily correspondent, Dapo Olawuni, he denounced a statement by the Tin Can Island Port chapter Chairman of the forum; Chief Ganiyu Adebanjo who said only Yorubas can be chairman of ANLCA chapters in Western zone. Chief Oyeniran explained that the group never mandated him to say so and that ANLCA is one big family and that the coming election is free for any contestant, irrespective of tribe.
Chief Olusegun Oyeniran is the National President of the Oodua Maritime Forum. In this interview with Shipping Position Daily correspondent, Dapo Olawuni, he denounced a statement by the Tin Can Island Port chapter Chairman of the forum; Chief Ganiyu Adebanjo who said only Yorubas can be chairman of ANLCA chapters in Western zone. Chief Oyeniran explained that the group never mandated him to say so and that ANLCA is one big family and that the coming election is free for any contestant, irrespective of tribe.
What is your reaction to the comments made by the Tincan chairman of your forum?
Actually, we have nine chapters in the western zone, but traditionally, the Tin Can chapter chairman of the Forum does not have the mandate to speak on behalf of Oodua maritime forum, especially on a very delicate issue like this. Whatever he has said, I regard it as his personal expression and not on behalf of this group, I wonder how somebody would say that in this coming election, Igbo people should go and prepare for vice chairman, is he drawing battle line between Oodua and the Igbos? The election we are conducting is the election of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents and not for Oodua Maritime Forum or Igbo Maritime Forum or Arewa Maritime Forum, ANLCA comprises of all ethnic groups, so I wonder how a chairman of a chapter can say this without the consent of the national body, that is why I said that he is speaking his own personal opinion and not on behalf of national Oodua maritime forum, it is only this office or from me that you can hear such a thing, and you can never hear something of that nature because that is not what we have in mind, ANLCA is one family and I will not allow anybody to tarnish my reputation or to cause any trouble for this coming election.
Is it true that candidates have been coming to lobby Oodua maritime forum?
Like I said, we have nine chapters in the western zone and Tin can chapter is one of them, maybe he is speaking as chairman of Tin can chapter, if he says somebody is lobbying for supports through Oodua, I do not know anything about it.
What about you, has any candidate come to you for support?
Everybody is free to lobby or to seek for any support, the time table for the elections has just come out, the ban on politics was just lifted, so it is too early to assess that, this has not come into my own office, though we are expecting and that is if they come, but even if anybody lobby or comes for support, it is not only the national president of Oodua maritime forum that has power to make somebody to emerge, it depends on the way you campaign and work hard to get it, because election is by number.
Is it not true that you cannot have a Yoruba man as ANLCA chairman in the East?
Nobody debars any Yoruba man from contesting at the east, nobody has ever come to complain to me that the eastern people prevented him from contesting, everybody is free to contest anywhere in Nigeria because we have one Nigeria. It is not constitutional to say that we are Yoruba or that we are in the western zone or in our land and therefore other tribes should not contest for any position, even if we say so, the constitution of ANLCA does not say so, anybody who is saying this is doing so on his own, wherever you come from you are free to contest under the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, if you can work hard, then you will emerge and this is why I said that election is by numbers, the constitution of ANLCA says anybody that has his complete document and have majority vote will emerge.
In this coming election, do you have anybody you are endorsing?
Every Yoruba man is my subject, so it very difficult for me to say I have any candidate, I don’t have any personal candidate, everybody that comes out are my candidates.
We have Igbos’ as chapter chairmen and western zone coordinator; did they receive your blessings before getting into this post?
Actually, they do not need to get my blessings before they will get there, like I said earlier, this is not constitutional, everybody is free to pick a form, once you work hard and you have majority to vote for you, then you will emerge, it is not necessary for you to get the blessings of anybody before you can emerge.
What are your expectations from the coming election?
I want to see the election to be peaceful, free, credible and fair, which is why it is very important for me to denounce the statement credited to Alhaji Ganiyu Adebanjo, ANLCA is one family and by the special grace of God there will not be any problem.
What steps have you taken to enlighten your members that it is not a do or die affair?
Like I said, we have many chapters in the western zone and we have our executives in those various chapters, in Apapa and Tin Can chapters we have executives there, so also we have it in other chapters. As I am speaking with you, we have been able to tour about four chapters to make them know that this election is not a do or die affair, make sure you have your complete documents, campaign, convince your people, let them know your manifesto and what you have for them when you emerge, and whoever emerges we will embrace the person, this is what we have been telling them. We have been to Apapa, Tin Can, Seme, Airport and Lilypond chapters, by the special grace of God we will be at the remaining chapters soon. The chapters have responded well, we gave them the advice and the instruction that this is what they must do and must not do what they must not do is to cause fracas, violence and fighting, elections do not need violence before you can emerge.
Igbo Maritime forum did elections recently, for some time now, your group has been very quiet, what is happening?
Well, you know Yorubas, we don’t just make noise unnecessarily, it is not until you hear us on the television or read about us in the newspapers before you know that we are doing something, we are doing something in our own way, everybody has their ways of doing things, we are doing our things the way it should be done and we are getting it right, the Igbo maritime forum did their elections, fine, anytime we want to do our own too, nobody stops us from doing it, but as of today I am the president of the group.
What is the relationship between the Oodua and the other ethnic maritime groups?
Like I told you, we are one family because it is the same license that I obtained from Customs that the Igbo people, Arewa and others obtained, so we are one family, we are in the same industry, we are relating well as one family.
There is a general assumption that Oodua maritime is all about ANLCA, is it true?
Oodua maritime forum is what it is, ANLCA is what it is, they stand on their own and we stand on our own, but it is interwoven, whoever you see as a Yoruba man in ANLCA are members of the Oodua maritime forum, so we have inter-relationship with each other, if they say ANLCA is Oodua maritime forum and Oodua maritime forum is ANLCA, then they are correct, in the associations you can find all tribes.
Why are you not carrying freight forwarders from other associations along?
Everything is about interest, especially politics, the door of Oodua maritime forum is open to every Yoruba man, there is no limitation; whether you belong to NAGAFF, NAFAC etc, the door is opened to everybody once you are from Yoruba tribe, but we cannot come to your room and start begging you to join us, that is why I said that everything is about interest.
What is your forum doing about the practicing fees face-off issue between ANLCA and the CRFFN?
What people are seeing as a problem is not a problem, it is just a minor misunderstanding that can occur in every organization, we are at it and by the grace of God we will soon resolve it, to let you know that we are doing something about it, on the 1st of October we held a meeting in Lagos where the chairman of CRFFN was invited and he came, we discussed about this issue and we told him that we are going to resolve it and we have been doing that, we are on it and I can assure you that by the grace of God it will soon be a past issue, it is just a minor misunderstanding.
What is the difference between freight forwarding practice of today and about 10 years ago?
We thank God, today, let me talk about ANLCA, this prince Olayiwola that came as our national president came at a time that we needed it, he has rebranded many things, he has tried to elevate ANLCA to a greater level, in fact I am proud of him especially as a Yoruba man, so the ANLCA of today and that of 10 years ago is incomparable, we thank God that it has become a serious association. In the area of the port activities, we have a lot of improvement now than what we had 10 years ago because the national executive of ANLCA has tried a lot to let the government know the problems we have and a lot of these problems have been attended to and that are why we have so many improvement now.
Do you think the new traffic law will affect cargo clearance at the port?
It will affect us seriously because when you clear your goods from the port and they give you certain time to come out, who will be responsible for the demurrage of the truck? It is going to affect us seriously, but I believe our national executive is doing something about it and they will make government to see some things they do not know about.
What are the challenges that your group is having?
We have a lot of challenges, one thing is that once you are a leader, even if you are the leader of a club, you will face many challenges not to talk of an organization like the Oodua maritime forum, and there are many challenges but we that God that He is in control. Human beings are so difficult to control and this is one of the challenges we are having, if you are trying to lift something up, some people will look at it from a different angle and try to pull it down, whatever it is that you are doing good, some people will still tell you that it is not good, but you cannot say because of this, they are not part of you again, so if you are a leader you should know how to accommodate people.
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