Almost four months after elections were held into the first eight elective positions into the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding Practice in Nigeria, one of the contestants at the elections, Mr Lucky Amiwero has challenged the elections in court.
Joined in the suit which is presently before the Lagos High court are the minister of state water transportation, Prince Okechukwu Emeka, the Nigerian Shippers Council which conducted the election, the new Council itself and a few other bodies and personalities whose identities could not be confirmed as at press time.
Shipping Position Weekly confirmed last week that the case was to have been assigned and mentioned but it was yet to be assigned to a judge because the judiciary in Lagos State has been on recess.
Our correspondent was told that the court actually resumed last week but full activities would resume this week. All attempts to make the registrar to convince the registrar to list the case and assign it did not jell as he reportedly declared that it was the prerogative of the chief judge.
We gathered that Mr Amiwero who is also the national president, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents actually took the legal option after he received no response from petitions that he allegedly written to the minister to protest the conduct of the elections.
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Sources at the ministry of transportation as well as the Shippers Council told Shipping Position Weekly that the embattled freight forwarder is actually praying the courts to challenge the election process and also that the court should declared the composition of the Council as a nullity.
The Council was inaugurated about one month ago, while it elected its chairman in the person of Hon Tony Nwabunike about three weeks ago.
Surprisingly, when he was contacted, Mr. Amiwero was evasive saying that he wouldn’t want to be disturbed with that kind of issue. He neither denied nor confirmed it. But industry sources hinted that there are pressure on him to withdraw the case as a bargain for a possible election into one of the five slots that are yet to be filled for the Western axis.
Presently, only eight members have been elected while the remaining 17 appointed by the minister in line with the 2007 Act. There are 15 more slots to be filled by elections form the three zones on the basis of five from each zone.
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