Sir Emenike Nwokeoji is the immediate past Vice President of ANLCA. He is seeking election to become the next President of the association, and he believes he is the better candidate. In this interview, he talks about the election, the association, and his ambition.
For the purpose of this interview, can we meet you Sir?
My name is Emenike Nwokeoji. I am from Abia state. I am been a long standing freight forwarder based in Port Harcourt with offices in Lagos as well.
What informed your decision to want to contest for the presidency of ANLCA?
What informed my decision is that I have been part of the association and whatever I am today, I have been made by the freight forwarding industry. This is the only job I have done in my life. Since I am too old to start learning a new trade, the much I can do is to see how I can contribute to the industry better than what it is now.
In specifics, what are you going to contribute?
I will contribute a whole lot. A whole lot is happening in the industry. As you may recall, I was part of Prince Shittu’s team. I worked with him for eight years as his vice president. I will just mention one of the last things we achieved in office; which was to make Federal Government to really classify and publish approved Federal Operation Units checkpoints in the country and that was done. It was published in national newspapers listing out approved FOU checkpoints, but there is nothing like that anymore. There are currently so many unapproved checkpoints. There is absolutely nothing happening. I don’t even know where to start listing them from. There are problems and challenges everywhere in the industry. The major thing that informed my decision is to contribute to bringing back the glory of the agents. So that when you go anywhere, you would be proud to introduce yourself as a clearing agent.
You worked with Prince Olayiwola Shitu as his VP. What will you consider as the greatest achievement of that regime?
I would just single out one. ANLCA got to a point where its properties were thrown out of the office we rented because the leaders then did not pay rent. The first thing we did from day one was that we were determined to make sure that we move the association to a site or building that is our own. So you can imagine the crisis we have been going through for the past five years. If the association was on a rented property, I can tell you that by now, there won’t be any association. Maybe it would be operating from people’s houses. It is very obvious.
You were not very visible as VP at that time, is it that the constitution of ANLCA gives you no role, or you are just a quiet person?
I don’t know your definition of what you mean by quiet. When you are working as a team, there is a head. As a vice president, the constitution only empowers you to act as directed by the President. I was serving in so many committees including Presidential committee and I made my inputs. So if you say I am quiet, well Yes, there can only be one Captain at a time in a ship.
A lot of people who may not like you ambition have pointed out to the fact that you are a very quiet man and ANLCA is a very strong association that needs a very strong person. Are you strong enough to do that?
I don’t know whether ANLCA is a wrestling team that we need a strong person to do that. I don’t know what you mean by strong. Just like Nigerians now elected a very strong person to carry out the affairs of the country; if strength is measured by physical strength. I think what we require now is mental strength and capacity and I don’t know whether anybody will say I am lacking in those areas.
There is still crises in ANLCA. Do you agree?
Definitely, everyone knows that there is crises in the association.
Your critics said you abandoned the association when the crisis was boiling.
That is a beautiful question. The crisis in the association; for those that did not know the origin was between BoT members and I am not a member of BoT. So which area was I to be part of? So I don’t know what you mean by being visible. To carry placards or what? It was a crises between BoT members and they were sorting out and meeting on their own. So I don’t know what anybody expect me to do as a non-BoT member.
Some people are of the opinion that as the immediate past Vice President, you ought to have stood in one place and let your stand be known. But you were not involved at all.
When you mean stand in one place, did they say I was wavering from one group to the other? No, if you say something is wavering, you need to explain what it means. If something is wavering, it means you are neither here nor there. Or you identify with this group in the morning and in the afternoon you identify with the other group. So I doubt if that is exactly what you mean.
Do you belong to any group?
There is no group. There’s absolutely no group. The BoT people as you know, had an election; elected a leader and the minority people that lost said No and that is what has brought us where we are. So I don’t know of any other thing. When I lost the election, I did not go to court. I did not write any protest. I attended the inauguration of the President; Mr Tony Iju. So I don’t know what anybody expects me to do. It is uncommon that you lose an election notwithstanding the margin of three votes and I went home and faced my business. Anytime I was invited to a meeting, I attended.
How do you think the crisis can be resolved?
Very simple. To resolve the crisis is a very minor issue. As far as I am concerned, the crisis is a very minor one. All you need to do is to call the parties from the origin. Trace the origin and determine what the problem is, then ask the parties to give compromise but there has not been such moves to really hear the genesis of the crisis before going about finding a solution.
There was an intervention by the CRFFN, but it appears to have failed to address the crises in the association. It also failed to assuage members who are aggrieved.
I was not part of it. The much that I know and read, I know before you start discussing how to solve a problem, you need to know the origin; like I said earlier. I cannot remember the CRFFN bringing both parties and listening to them differently and finally bringing them to a round table to allow each party to state their case before they start looking for a solution. I doubt that from the decision they took that I read and was published. It is obvious they didn’t even bother to trace the origin. All they were interested is to make peace. There is no way peace can really stand without justice.
The review of ANLCA constitution in Owerri is still a burning point. What is your take on this, especially when it says that the Presidency of ANLCA is now for five years? Do you agree with this?
I have nothing against this. Nothing is cast in stone. Nothing is permanent apart from change. If ANLCA under a conducive atmosphere decide to change or amend their constitution, it is allowed by law. But if you amend a constitution during crisis and the guidelines were not followed. What happened is that ANLCA has a constitution. No matter how fat or whatever you use to describe it, that constitution until amended still remains a guiding light for action guiding the association. First of all we would find out when the amendment was done. Was it at a right time? Secondly, did it pass through the required constitutional guidelines? That is another thing. To amend ANLCA constitution, you need to set up the committee, I’m quoting the constitution, the committee will go round and circulate the constitution proposal for amendments to chapters for their inputs. From there, the chapters will make inputs and the committee will collect it then the National headquarters will call for an AGM and the AGM will ratify what the committee has done. That is what the constitution says. But that was not followed. Some people went for a gathering somewhere, even a quorum was not formed and they came up that they have amended the constitution.
And then even if the constitution was amended, in every sane society the people that amended the constitution cannot be the first beneficiaries. Which means as we have elected a President for four years, with a certificate issued by INEC that the President can amend the constitution and four years can now be six years. That is not constitution amendment. That is tenure elongation. This is my own interpretation. If you amend a constitution, the next regime are the people that will benefit from it because you have a certificate of return that has a date of exit. Who will amend the date? So you will cancel it with biro and extend it to when you want?
Does it means if you emerge as President, you would throw that amendment away?
There is no amendment in the first place. Don’t ever refer to that as an amendment. This is not an amendment and the question of throwing it away does not arrive. If you set up a committee and the committee goes through the process written in the constitution, if that is the will of the people, the people will adopt it. It is not a one-man issue.
What is the current leadership of ANLCA not doing right, that you will like to change if you emerge as the President?
I would have loved you to even say what they are even doing, so that I will know what they are doing for the good of the practitioners. The present leadership has been in power for not less than 15 months and if they have the desire to contest this election, 15 months was enough for someone to make an impact that agents will say allow this man since he took over from acting, he has done things that if given the full tenure he will perform well. This is because the only thing you are going to remove now is the word “acting”. He has been acting for more than 14 months, has anything changed? Or is it the nomenclature that will make the agents to change? The answer is No. So if you know you have that desire, you will hit the ground running from the day one you came in as acting. So if you are waiting until now and go through election to show the stuff you’re made off, then something somewhere is not right.
Are you saying Kayode Farinto failed as acting President?
It is not in my place to rate him. But I can tell you that the fact that people are urging me to come out shows that they are not feeling the impact of leadership. You have already said I am a quiet person. Since 2018, I went and face my business. Anytime there is meeting and I am consulted, I air my views. All of us that left office, that is the decision we took because if you try to criticize they will say when you were there what did you do? It will just call for unnecessary abuse. So you will just give people free hand to show the stuff that they are made of, that is what I have done. If people now see it as an offence, that is well and good. But allow people, you don’t know their plans. We have seen their plans for five years and instead of moving forward, we’re moving backward. That is why we are coming for restoration of the past glory of ANLCA.
What are you offering ANLCA members and the association if you emerge as the next President?
I will go back to what I have told you. Currently for an average agent, when you get a job, you cannot quote for any job because you don’t know what you will meet in the field. So many agents are suffering from high blood pressure, because there is hunger in the land and due to pressure, they will accept a job and get to the field to discover that the money they have quoted is not enough to deliver and you see them cutting corners. The last one is about the new system introduced by Customs on how to clear vehicles. Go and see what agents are going through. The same system that gave them value is faulting the value and nobody is doing anything about it. You can just go to Tin Can and ask them. Ordinarily, the idea was conceived by the administration of Prince Olayiwola Shittu when we went to Ghana and came back with that idea. In Ghana, when you want to buy a car, once you have the VIN before you contact any agent, you go to the Ghanaian Customs system and type in the VIN and you will get the customs duty. You don’t need an agent to tell you how much it will cost. The only thing the agent will tell you is his service charge. But now, we brought it in here and because of lack of leadership, we allowed the same system that is working perfectly in Ghana to be abused here, such that when you have the correct VIN, age, description of vehicle, model, make and everything, yet you are going through hell. We go to shipping companies, they collect their money as container deposit and for months to years they cannot refund you a deposit even when you have received your shipment.
So leadership is not all about taking pictures and flashing it on Whatsapp platforms. Leadership is a practical thing and people should feel the impact of leadership.
People who are watching the coming election say the battle ground seems to be in the East and they are looking at you and the current patron of ANLCA, Chief Henry Njoku. Do you feel threatened?
How can I feel threatened? I am not contesting any election against Njoku. Njoku has not taken any form to contest for any office and much as I am aware. So I don’t know where our lines are going to cross. Presently, I’m aware we have only two candidates for the President’s office and the second name is not Henry Njoku.
If you were not contesting, will you vote Kayode Farinto?
You did not frame that question properly. I would not know who Kayode Farinto will be contesting against. Until I weight the two, then I can now know who to vote for. But I cannot just tell you that even if Kayode Farinto is contesting, I will vote for him.
Follow us on Facebook/ twitter
