Alhaji Taiwo Mustapha is the factional Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA). In this interview with Oluyinka Onigbinde he speaks extensively about the crisis in the association.
What is the genesis of the crisis in ANLCA?
The bottom line and the genesis of the crisis in ANLCA today all boils down to our inability to be fair and stand by justice and to stand by the truth, irrespective of whoever is affected negatively or positively. We have always had it good before the coming in of this National executives, led by Tony Nwabunike, let me make a quick comment here; I will not deny the fact that Tony Iju has always been my personal friend and I like him as an individual, but where he got it wrong is the leadership style, not being able to stand firm on whatever he says or whatever is just, he looks at issues based on the fact that he thinks these are my people or these are not my own people.
Coming to the specific, ANLCA held an election of the National executives in 2018 that brought in Tony Nwabunike as the National President and by way of rule and conventional ethics and norms in ANLCA for years, we have three key positions and that is, the position of the National President, the position of the board of trustees’ chairman and the position of electoral committee chairman (ASECO). We have always made it as a rule that these three positions should be shared among the three ethnic groups in Nigeria, incidentally before that election, Prince Olayiwola Shittu was president as a Yoruba man, Henry Njoku was the chairman of the board; as at that time he has already spent six years and then Raymond Oyeba was the ASECO chairman. So knowing full well that Prince Olayiwola Shittu was leaving after spending eight years as the national president, so the next president will come from another ethnic group especially from our Igbo brothers, so it was agreed that no Yoruba man should pick the form for the post of the national president, so if that happens that is to say the post of the president, the post of the board chairman and the ASECO is going to be occupied by the Igbos, so it was agreed that one of the positions should be relinquished to Yorubas , so when the Oduduwa group made that request, I was in the board then and we all agreed, Tony Nwabunike was part of the board then, that as soon as the national election comes up, then Yoruba will present a candidate for the post of chairman of BoT. But to our amazement and embarrassment and to the embarrassment of the entire association, that agreement was turned down as soon as Tony Nwabunike emerged as the president, Chief Henry Njoku refused to recognize the election that was conducted by the board, eight of us were part of that election and five of us voted for me as Chairman, Chief Henry Njoku for whatever reason best known to him, refused to recognized that election and up till today that is what has brought us to this point. So what I am saying in essence is that most time when we stand up to say there is injustice at the top, or we say why is President Muhammadu Buhari appointing only Hausas, so if we have the gut to criticize him at that level, then at the small level of our association, you can’t even respect simple norms within ourselves. So Tony Nwabunike and his co-travelers refused to recognize our election and that is what has brought us to this level.
So we can rightly say there is a nexus between the crisis rocking the association and the BoT?
Yes, that’s the bedrock of the whole thing and that’s where it all started, already two and the half years are gone, at every stage we have always had a reason to meet to agree on certain things. At the initial stage, it was agreed and Tony Nwabunike said we should give Henry Njoku three months, after six months and after that nine months, we were not making serious move as at that time, we said let’s give him room to stabilize his administration, but having realize he was playing on our intelligence, we decided that this is not right and it’s not going to go on.
As the chairman how comfortable are you with the crisis?
Nobody is comfortable with any crisis, no matter how big you are, if there is crisis between you and your wife or the children; even if it’s only one child out of six children you are having crisis with, you can’t be comfortable with it, not to talk of you quarrelling with the person that is supposed to be the president of your association and his executives not all his executives though, they are supposed to be seven but three of them are not with him based on the fact that what is doing is not right, so if it is one house even within them there wouldn’t have been any splinted group.
What is the role of the BoT in the Association?
Without going through our constitution at all, looking at it from normal way, you are running a company you have board of directors, you have the MD of the company, you have managers and directors, now can you at any point in time as the MD lead the managers and all other directors and say the board of directors has no role to play in that corporate body. The board of trustee in ANLCA today is the only legally recognized body; not even the national executives, because when you get to the Corporate Affairs Commission that is in charge of all associations, the only name you find there are the board of trustees, so how can you tell me the board of trustees has no role to play in the association, the issue is that the board may not be involved in the day to day running of association. We are there to come in when there are issues that the national executives cannot resolve, we are there to resolve crisis, if anybody want to sue the association today, it is the board they are going to sue, not even the president, the president has no legal backing to go to court and represent the association.
Who is supposed to conduct election of chapters?
The board is in charge of all election of chapters, even that of the National Executives , the board conducted the election that brought them in with the same ASECO that we are talking about, and that is part of how we got here , the court where Peter Obi rushed to get judgment against me that I couldn’t have been chairman of the board ruled that because myself, Chief Dennis Okafor, Mr. Dayo Azeez and Chief Ernest Elochukwu were not registered as at that time, we couldn’t have been board members not to talk of even vying for the post of the chairman. And each time they went to court the lawyer will always come back to tell us that the judge was saying go back and resolve the issue within yourself, because as soon as that judgment comes out, both parties are going to lose out and won’t be at advantage of anybody and each time I hear that, I will call Tony to talk to Peter Obih to tell him to withdraw this case, let’s call ourselves and resolve this issue, but they insisted they wanted to see the logical conclusion of that judgment. I never went to court for one day while that case was going on, even when the judgment came out and said we needed to go back to do the registration of the board before we can become board members, as soon as we did that registration then the court pronounced that it is now our tenure as board members is commencing. So you see the issue there, the person who got the judgment at the initial stage was singing victory, nobody queried that, at the end of the day when it is against them, that is when they are now singing injustice.
Presently, the NECOM has conducted elections in Kano and in Abuja, will that election stand, after all these?
The late Chief MKO Abiola made one parable that, when you go to the river to bath and you pull off your cloth and a mad man comes and pack your cloth and start running away and you are running after him who are they going to call a mad man, when somebody decides to do things the way he understands issues, the court has pronounced that you cannot parade yourself as national executives and some people who are there are igniting you to go and conduct elections. Our own role is to pile all that and go back to the court. When Adams Oshiomole was taken to court by an APC member at ward level, that he should no longer parade himself as chairman of the party and the court gave the judgment, he immediately stopped parading himself, that is what it takes to be a leader. As soon as Peter Obih brought that judgment, we stopped holding any BoT meeting, because the court has said we are not in existence then, so few forgot about whether chairmanship or not, because we felt that is the way to go, to be law abiding, so if on his own, he (Nwabunike) decides that despite that he still went ahead to conduct that election, for us we are only looking at him, because we can’t join issues where there are no issues, because the election is dead on arrival.
What are you willing to concede to allow peace in the association?
For us, we will continue to look at every avenue, just like I said before, we have had written about five different letters before it got to this level, asking that let us hold meeting within ourselves and resolve issues, but they never responded to one, the only one that Tony Nwabunike responded and gave me a call on, was the last one we wanted to hold, but he called me and said he wanted to go and bury his brother in the village, and that as soon as that is over, he was going to call me to give me a date on when we can hold that meeting and that was all till today, he never bothered to call, so we have exploited every avenue, but however we are making other moves to still get things done, but right now it’s not for public consumption.
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