Following the suspension of his practicing license four months ago, President of the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) Dr. Frank Ukor has alleged being witch-hunted deliberately by the management of the Nigeria Custom Service.
Addressing a press conference at the association's national secretariat in Lagos last week, Dr. Ukor alleged that his victimization was borne out of the fact that he had kicked against the auctioning of more than 2,115 overtime cargoes at the port by Customs.
Following the suspension of his practicing license four months ago, President of the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) Dr. Frank Ukor has alleged being witch-hunted deliberately by the management of the Nigeria Custom Service.
Addressing a press conference at the association's national secretariat in Lagos last week, Dr. Ukor alleged that his victimization was borne out of the fact that he had kicked against the auctioning of more than 2,115 overtime cargoes at the port by Customs.
Another reason according to him, is his criticism of the Comptroller General of Customs, Alhaji Inde Dikko when the later was reported to have allegedly stated that he does not recognize the status of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN) as a regulatory body.
Recounting how his practicing license was suspended, he claimed that the license registered under the name; Destiny Impex Limited was used to capture a job at Onne Port in Rivers State without his notice or the notice of his business manager.
Dr. Ukor however claimed that the culprit, one Mr. Martin Nwakwo has since been handed to the Customs and that he has since been released after paying a debit note of N4.2million on four of the containers he had cleared for two of his clients.
"I did not say that if I made a protest then government must obey, the government has its own rules, but the point is that it is because of these issues that I talked about and for which I am now being witch hunted", he claimed.
Giving an insight into the genesis of his travails, he disclosed that: "On 20th of March, I got a call from my Chief Operations Officer that my license has been blocked, I investigated and found out that it has truly been blocked, we called Julius Nwagwu he said he doesn't know about it and that we should go and ask the CG".
Speaking further he said "we investigated and found out the person that did the job, he owned up to it, every person in the customs actually collected money from him on that job and they passed the job to go, I got the person and he has paid N4.2million on the containers"
"Somebody from the joint task force said that because I granted a press conference about the 2,115 containers and this is why they want to deal with me and send me to jail, and I wondered when does being patriotic cause one to be subjected to jail terms, I want you to help me tell the world that I am innocent, in case I am sent to jail" he pleaded.
He called on the customs management to unblock his license, even as he charged them to look into activities of DTI cafes where licenses can be used to capture goods for clearance without the notice of the license owner.
According to him, many license holders are currently crying because they are being punished for offenses they did not commit.
He urged the customs to perfect its system or introduce another system whereby license holders will be alerted whenever there is an attempt to use their license by unknown persons.
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