A big crack appeared yesterday within the ranks of the opposition to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN), as the highly-expected freight forwarders congress where far-reaching decisions regarding the current face-off with the freight forwarding regulatory agency were to be taken suffered a serious setback.
A big crack appeared yesterday within the ranks of the opposition to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN), as the highly-expected freight forwarders congress where far-reaching decisions regarding the current face-off with the freight forwarding regulatory agency were to be taken suffered a serious setback.
First to back out was a major promoter of the controversial meeting; the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders [NAGAFF] which distanced itself earlier yesterday after the meeting of its national and chapter executives, raising suspicion that the threat issued by the CRFFN has worked.
The NAGAFF had called its members to prepare the grounds for the mother-of-all-meetings which had been scheduled for a hotel in Lagos, only for the association to make a detour.
And as if in response to the sudden position of NAGAFF, the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), also a few hours later, came out of a similar meeting to toe the same line of action.
Addressing the media shortly after his association’s meeting, founder of NAGAFF; Dr. Boniface Aniebonam called on his members to respect the Minister of Transport; Senator Idris Umar and the Chairman of the governing council of CRFFN,Alhaji Akeem Olarenwaju, even as he stressed that there is need to embrace dialogue.
According to him, for peace to reign among freight forwarders, there is need to respect the law of the land adding that he is aware of the ongoing meeting held by ANLCA for peace to reign.
‘’I think what we need to apply in this concept is to get the matter resolved as far as I am concerned and on the part of NAGAFF, a meeting has just been convened by the national executive council and we took a stand to be respectful to the Honourable Minster of Transport of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and of course, Hakeem Olarenwaju who is the chairman of the council to set down and talk with them’’.
According to him, ‘‘the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding has the mandate to regulate and control registered members, including the associations and those of us who are practitioners either being a licensed customs agents or a freight forwarders have the importers as the principal, so the issue here becomes very clear that the council cannot go beyond or above the freight forwarders or licensed customs agents to go to the port to pick money on a cargo without the consent of the agents’’, he stated.
Apparently referring to the ANLCA meeting, he said; ‘’I am aware that ANLCA is also holding a meeting and be rest assured that we are in communication and I did speak with the president of ANLCA this morning and I think they will be quite disposed because he is quite a responsible person ‘’.
And when Shipping Position Daily sought to know the outcome of its meeting, the national president of ANLCA; Prince Olayiwola Shittu confirmed that the association is also backing out of today’s meeting.
“We agreed to suspend the meeting of tomorrow (Wednesday) in deference to the meeting with the minister on Thursday”, he confirmed tom our correspondent.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that the CRFFN had on Monday and yesterday warned to apply the full weight of the law on anyone who convenes what it called an illegal meeting.
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