Dennis Ukwu, is a contender for the post of Vice President in the coming election of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents. He served as Assistant Secretary of the association in the last five years, in this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde, he speaks about his journey from the grass root to leadership position in the association. He also discusses his vision and challenges, even as the election approaches.
What makes you fit for the position you are running for in the coming ANLCA election?
I appreciate this opportunity. Before I became the Assistant National Secretary, I was the Zonal Coordinator of the Eastern Zone. And before I become the Zonal Coordinator, I was also a Chairman of a chapter. So what that shows is that I have been an industry player for many years, climbing from the ladder to where I found myself today. The wealth of experience is what we are gathering now to bring them to bear. I won’t say I have done much as the Assistant National Secretary because I have a very vibrant National Secretary that has always been there covering me up. He understands what an assistant means. Whenever my principal is not around, I take over. So we worked compatibly and so friendly. Accumulatively, I am bringing the wealth of my experience from when I was the Chairman of a chapter, as the Zonal Coordinator and of course the recent position I held as the Assistant National Secretary.
Can you elaborate on the importance of your profession?
I am bringing them to bear because if you follow up my interviews, I belong to a team which I would call a digital team. What that means is that we are youthful. I don’t want analog people to continue to run this noble profession. This is a noble profession. I was telling someone who wanted to mock my profession that “listen, what we are using today as human beings in Nigeria in context, 99 percent of it are coming from outside”. You can verify this information I am giving you. Even the water you are drinking, the cup you want to use to drink it, or what you are using to package it as pure water or whatever, were imported. It’s really a combination of so many factors and what are these factors? The engine that is assimilated in the refinery or the water and the cap of the bottle was imported. Do you know about that? The cloth you are wearing today, you can’t just go to the market and pick this on the shelf. There are so many combinations that make this cloth before we are able to wear it. Even before you put it to this, there are some machines you have to put in force before you get this. Everything that we are using today, even the light, are being imported as far as Nigeria is concerned. And guess what? I was asking that person how did those countries achieve that? That is a question nobody has answered. The life we are living in Nigeria in comfortable conditions even this air-condition is not made in Nigeria. Even this light you are enjoying now, if you look at all the factors, it is not from Nigeria. Nigeria forgets those people that made it come to their doorstep. Touching the lives of people are the factors of this freight forwarding and customs brokers which we belong to. But we are not being seen. We are just those people that they refer to as “behind the scene”. There are people that are making you see those dramas. We are the people behind the scenes but we felt we have overstayed behind the scenes. We want to come and let the world know us. When you mention freight forwarding or clearing agents, they start to mock us. They call us bad names and start making jest of us. This time around, the whole world will hear us. Every day, Customs declare trillions of Naira. Who are those making it? They forget that there are people that have beaten that drum before its sounds.
Are you in agreement with the ANLCA acting President’s statement about working towards securing 1% of generated revenue for freight forwarders, and can you elaborate on your stance?
That is an understatement. It is our right; ab initio it is supposed to be our right. It is just because we have visionless leaders. Those who don’t even know what we are elaborating. Those who when we formulate some ideas, customs will call them at the back and dash them N2 million naira and they will forget about that paramount idea. But this team will not compromise. In the next one year, you wouldn’t be seeing me or the National President in the air talking about the formation of Nigeria that they were supposed to have an input and economy forming circular. We are supposed to be among them. Including the decision-making body about the economy of this country, we are supposed to be part of it, because as far as the economy is concerned, who are the contributors? Who are supposed to have an input? I know what I will tell my importer and he will go and pay the right duty because he is going to use me as a guide or cover-up to devalue his goods. I am the one who knows that this thing he is quoting is probably not the correct value. I would ask him to do the right thing otherwise he can take his job elsewhere and you know all of them are always afraid when it comes to meeting government officials or Customs. We are the ones taking the blunt. We are the ones challenging the government. At the end of the day, if there is nothing to show for it, we have failed.”
What is the significance of representing freight forwarding, especially in terms of ensuring the well-being of members in their old age? How does your team plan to address these concerns?
Let me also tell you why it is very, very important for us to represent this noble profession. We don’t have retirement age benefits. Anybody now that has been doing this job for like 30 to 40 years and at the end of the day, they say they have diabetes, they don’t even have anything to fall back on. A lot of our members are dying when they don’t have bill of laden again. It is not supposed to be so. It is supposed to be something that you have contributed and the umbrella body of the profession will cover you even at your old age. There is something that is supposed to be paying you at old age, because there is no one paying you pension or whatever. This is what we are coming here to represent. It is not only going to be Farinto, it is a team. He picked all of us and we believe that he is going to be the one to head. We know his capability. We know that he is not somebody that will go there tomorrow and betray us. That is why all of us are rallying around him. Otherwise, we have a choice to follow the other man. That man is somebody who used to dash me money about 20 years ago and that man still expects me to fold my hand after crossing university level, learning this work. I didn’t just become an agent, I learned it for seven years. That man will still expects that for more than 30 years for him to rule me? The tenure he has done, what has he achieved? He served as the Chairman of Onne and also a Zonal Coordinator. Go and check my record in the east when I was a coordinator. The record cannot be faulted. So, what we are saying in essence is that we need support from our members. We are the team who want to leverage and remove all these bottlenecks. We are the team that will go home and say, yes, I’m proud to be a freight forwarder. That’s what I’m going to do. It is not about me. For what ANLCA has given me, I can go home. The house I live in Port Harcourt, I built it about 30 something years ago. In all benefits, I feel that ANLCA has given me what I wanted in life, there is no way by history will be written without mentioning ANLCA. At the end of the day, what will I fall back on? What will I impart? What will I give back to the society? That’s what why are coming out. Like someone like Farinto, what has he not achieved in ANLCA? But we say no, it is not enough, if I go to my locality now, I can’t come back with N50,000 because I’m dashing those who don’t have anything they are doing. I say what will you contribute? What will I do? The best thing I think I can do is to join hands with the leadership team and see what we can do for the government and serve our profession as a member. That’s what we are asking and I think we are not asking for too much.
Are you perturbed about the personality of your opponent in ANLCA?
First and foremost, there are these factors to consider. The factor that if the president is coming from the other side of the divide, for instance from the East, ordinarily the vice will come from the West. At the other way around, it is the same way. I don’t even know who the guy is. So I don’t want to bother myself thinking about how to start to work. I don’t want to bother myself because I know that as far as Farinto is concerned, he represents this divide and I’m going to represent him as his vice. So who is coming to try and truncate the arrangement that has been there? So we cannot be voting President and be voting Vice, unless they want to scatter this ANLCA. You see why I’m not even bothered? Even if he becomes a money bag, it doesn’t even make sense to me because the Yorubas will say they prefer the President than the vice. Then those of us in the East will bother whether that man who wants to be President is useful to them. In fact they prefer the one that will be vice that will be useful to them than being the president who won’t be useful. You see, it’s something that I’ve already arranged. As far as we want to give this presidency to the West, automatically if that guy is coming from the east and you ask me this question, then I will be having a headache. As far as I am concerned, I don’t see him as somebody who is running. If you look at what’s going on in their own side, they want this election not to hold. There is this proverb in my place that when two people are fighting and the other one starts to carry sand, you should get yours from the floor. That’s exactly what is happening now. If you go to our platform, you will be hearing all sorts of arguments that you don’t want to follow the constitution or you don’t want to follow the Customs Consultative Council’s condition. Do you know the sacrifice I have done so far? I agreed to relinquish what constitutionally I’m supposed to enjoy in the next three months. I said for peace to reign, I am giving up tomorrow. I don’t want again. Let me go and prepare for my election. That singular act alone act alone will show you that we are prepared. Go ask them what they have. They don’t have anything. They only have an evil agenda. At this level, they are talking about an evil agenda. When Emenike was the chairman of Onne, you can go and verify, our office was a container, no air condition, but just one small fan. You cannot stay there for two minutes and that was when Onne made the highest money. But I can assure you if you go there, there is no legacy Emenike dropped. As if that one was not even enough, when he became the zonal coordinator for about one year, Emenike did not do anything for us. You can go and ask what I did when I was a coordinator. I left indelible marks. Since I left as a coordinator, nobody is talking about any zonal coordinator again in the east, because during my eight years, there is no year we did not do Thanksgiving or give awards to those who have contributed one way or another to ANLCA. There is no year we did not do calendar or seminars for our members. I was the one doing that alone as a coordinator. As I left, go and see what happened there. Everything died down. I have a lot of things to contribute at the national level, not as the national secretary because I don’t have any power to do much. But now that I am going to have a portfolio that would add value to what I plan to do, you will see it happening. So don’t bother about whoever is coming to divide, I am not seeing myself as someone that is coming out to divide.
We quite know for sure that the West is divided. However some also believe that even in the east some people are divided. How do you intend to manage this?
What qualifies you as a member is when you have a license. You see how the crowd came to hear us out Of course 30 percent doesn’t even have a license, but they are all our members and I can assure you that those are the people they are parading. But when it has occurred to them that is not every member that will cast vote unless they have an up-to-date license; that was when they became apprehensive. So all these people saying the west or south are divided, watch them closely, they are the people that don’t have license. When you don’t have a license, what will you do? You can have nothing. You don’t have power to contribute as far as voting is concerned. You must bank on those who have license. If you come to the east now, I have almost 90 percent of those who have registered having license and my opponent have only 10 percent. Even those 10 percent are still looking at him as somebody who is not serious. I don’t want to boast, but I feel we are prepared more than them in all ramifications.
Do you see this election as an election for money bags as many people believe?
Every election has to have a limit of money bags, but if you start looking at that you will be misled. You just need to focus on the goal. Focus on those you already have and those you trust. They did it in 2018, what happened? They were sharing money and I told the people to collect the money and vote their conscience. They know who will represent them well. They know those who are just being pushed to come and run elections like the present man. The die the minute when I have already committed the entire east, brought the National President, they all endorsed them, then after we had left, you come and say you want to run. Those people that endorsed us are not the kind of people you can just use N20,000, N50,000 or N100,000 to buy their conscience. They have already given me their consent and their endorsement. They are not going back; coupled with the way I relate with them and the sacrifice I have made so far in that place. I’m only just worried about here in the West. If the Farinto I know can hold this place, leave that side for me.
