My Challenge Is To See That Nigerian Freight Forwarders Embrace International Bests Practices, Good Training” …Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju (Outgoing Vice Chairman, CRFFN)
Although a very successful practitioner, Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju is not your usual freight forwarder. Even though, he is the vice chairman of CRFFN, he does not carry it on his face. Appearing as our guest on this page for the first time even though he is a friend of the Shipping Position Weekly family equally tells fortunes about his disposition to things. His conviction that the CRFFN must move on to the next level is however getting a hold on him, little wonder, he came out espousing what he believes should be the next focus of the Council. He told me about his vision for the Council; he also spoke about the challenges of pioneering the Council in the last two years.
How has it been since you have been on the governing board of the CRFFN?
I give glory to the almighty God and I also thank the government of Nigeria for finding it fit to establish the CRFFN and for making me one of the first set of members of the governing council and the first vice chairman of the council. When we first got in there, many of us were trying to find our feet, but with the guidance of God, we have been moving on fine and we are getting there gradually.
What where the challenges you faced as the first vice chairman of the council?
We had challenges, especially, as Nigerians were in hurry to see us do something fast. But the diverse experiences of members of the governing council came to the fore as we had to study what the enabling Act is saying; we needed to understand the aims and objectives of the Act. Some people said we were slow, but we know that we were not slow, but if we had allowed ourselves to be rushed, we would not have been able to get to where we are today. I think we are on course and by now we are being applauded and given some high scores. When you look back from the time when they said we were not doing anything till date, at least you will give us some credit, and that is how life is, you can not give birth to a child in a day and expect the child to walk that same day, he has to go through some processes.
From your standpoint as a freight forwarder would you say that CRFFN has achieved its objectives?
I will say it has not fully, but we are getting there gradually because you know it’s not a day’s job. Look at Nigeria at 50 year, we are still trying to get there, we will try our best because some other people are still coming on board, generations, yet unborn are still coming into the governing council of CRFFN to contribute their own input, but the most important thing is to do your best so that when others come on board they can say that at least our founding colleagues did something that we can build upon.
What is the relationship between CRFFN and freight forwarding associations at the moment?
Every freight forwarder now knows that associations are different from the council. The council performs regulatory functions. You know that the council itself came about because we could not speak with one voice as freight forwarders. They had to bring in the council so as to bring us together. We had elections into the council, some were appointment and some people represent their zones in the council so that we can speak in one voice and be aligned with international best practices and that is why we have registered five associations. We are beginning to see the result of our efforts now, it has never happened in the history of freight forwarding in Nigeria for associations to agree, but now you can see where NAGAFF, ANLCA and Council of Managing Directors are now holding meetings together, At least, the fact that they are coming together as a pressure group and are standing up against CRFFN for what they perceived as wrong is what I really admire because at the end of the day somebody have to be there trying to tell you that what you are doing is wrong so that you too will not sleep. If not because of CRFFN, I have never seen them come together in a meeting and writing a letter to us at CRFFFN that they are now working together.
How was the council able to resolve the opposition from the Central Working Committee?
I am surprised that you are asking me this question because I have never sat down with CWCFFN. What I know is that we have a registrar, we have done verification, we did registration and we told every association to register, and we eventually registered five associations provisionally. What we have in our book is five associations and any other association or pressure group I don’t know and I have never sat down with them and I don’t believe any council member sat with them on any issue, but definitely we know ourselves and everybody is agitating for peace and that is why at the end of the day the Honourable minister stepped in and now the peace is there, but I have never sat with any group. I know freight forwarders, I know associations and we are all working together to ensure that we better the lots of our members.
Some people have said that the minister is interfering in the affairs of CRFFN, do you think so?
In everything you must have a father and an adviser, even when you look at the Act, the role of the minister is there, which is to give directions. Freight forwarders are the intermediaries between the government, task collectors and the importer, we are the middle men and the government know that through us, it can get its revenue. Definitely they have to streamline and safe guard the integrity of their resources and that is why they formed the council. Government through the minister must ensure that there is harmony and that law and order is not compromised, and if operators of an Act are not managing the formative years of an organisation very well, it is the duty of the government to ensure that the integrity of the council is not compromised and you and I know that the minister is the person to do this. It is his responsibility to ensure that those who are in charge of operating the Act do so according to its aims and objectives. So, if you are derailing, the minister will put you in check. I do not think that amounts to inference, the Act allows it.
What will you consider as the most important achievement of the council since it commenced operations?
When we started we were not just doing things in our own way. There is an Act which we are following and first of all, getting a registrar was a big task but we thank God because we are focused and I can tell you we got the best person for the position and this has reduced our tension. It was during the period when we had no registrar that we were accused of doing nothing. But things changed as soon as we got a registrar. We started registration of members and verifications and at least now we have offices in most of the zones, we now have in Port Harcourt, Kano, Lagos and we are still trying to get in some other areas. Within these two years, we have become a member of FIATA and some other organizations like the WCA and TIACA.
What does the membership of FIATA mean for Nigeria?
FIATA is a federation of freight associations where you have to be aligned with international best practices in freight forwarding. Membership comes with a lot of opportunities. For instance, if you are not a member of FIATA, you can not assess their training facilities. FIATA has its own institute which is like a university when you graduate from there, it will be like you graduating from a university abroad. There are a lot of other things, for instance too, look at logistics and what we have often called shipping companies’ arbitrary charges which we have always handled them locally, whereas FIATA is where we should take them to. From there, we can even get statistics of what other countries are charging, because before you can challenge somebody for charging arbitrarily, you have to know what they are charging elsewhere. If you ask FIATA any information about charges in other countries, they give it to you first hand and from there you can now know whether they are charging you extra in your country. These are some of the benefits; our people will enjoy the best of international training. Ghana has been in FIATA for about eight years, they now have a FIATA institute; FIATA has been doing a train- -the -trainer course in Ghana. When people talk about Ghana, they don’t know how Ghana got to its present position, it is because they have been a member of FIATA. And if your country is not a member of FIATA, you cannot benefit, someone like me can not go to Ghana to attend the school because it is only for countries associated with FIATA, as a Nigerian I cannot go to the institute in Ghana, as a Ghanaian you cannot come to the institute in Nigeria under FIATA, any institute now that the CRFFN is going to accredit, their instructor has to be trained by FIATA.
Why was it difficult for Nigeria to join FIATA?
For almost 12 years Nigeria has been applying through different associations. In FIATA, there are standards and if you don’t meet their standards, they will not admit you. Even now that they have admitted us, two countries where not voted in, your country has to be verified and you have to lobby, it’s like doing an election, this last one we had 121 countries in attendance.
As the leader of the delegation how where you able to swing it for Nigeria?
I have been in this FIATA for almost about 10 years as an individual member from Nigeria and I have been attending all the meetings even before the CRFFN, we have been talking with FIATA about our country because we know that the only thing that we were enjoying as individual members is just networking. But, when we told FIATA that we have more than 10,000 freight forwarders in Nigeria they didn’t believe it. And by the time CRFFN commenced registration and we told them that we had registered about 5,000 individual members they couldn’t believe. FIATA also needs Nigeria because we are the hub of in Africa, we have the population, we have the economy and we have the market. FIATA is like an NGO that wants development; it’s like talking of UNICEF that wants some deceases to be eradicated. FIATA too is striving to eradicate all the shortcomings in freight forwarding.
You haven’t really answered my question; I am interested in knowing how you used your position as leader of delegation and member of FIATA to facilitate our admission
Ok, immediately I came on board as a member of the governing council of CRFFN, we started the journey to become a member of FIATA. Immediately I was elected as the vice chairman, I put in the application and I started the lobbying, I started talking to them because already they want us in, I am a member and I am in the caucus of FIATA and I used all the links that I have.
Getting admitted into FIATA is not a day issue; we faced lots of challenges from here and there including getting sponsors because a country has to sponsor your country, some African countries refused to sponsor Nigeria until we got our brothers from Egypt who sponsored us at the last minute. FIATA is supposed to have announced our admission in Canada about a year ago, but because we had no sponsor. And many other issue that came up; even from Nigeria here some people wrote petitions that the CRFFN should not be admitted, but FIATA is an organization that you just have to convince them and they will see reasons why you have to be there, and they see that in any congress we always have the largest number of participants in attendance, the minimum is 40 persons, and even though Nigerian was not yet a member, a lot of Nigerian attended. I must say this; the minister of transport was the one who interfered and made us to be there and I really appreciate it because we have a minister who has knowledge and who has been in this industry, he knows the benefits and understands why Nigeria should be there, he was personally there to witness our admission. Immediately he assumed office, one of the first briefings he had with us was that we should be in FIATA and we told him our challenges and where we have stopped, so he picked it up from where we have stopped and wrote a letter to the president of FIATA that we should be admitted and they gave him that honour immediately, the next thing we had was congratulations as our name was announced in Bangkok. In FIATA, we have African regional meeting for members, Europeans have their own, the Americas also have their own too, so every region have to meet and your region has to accept you, so in that regional meeting for Africans, we had Mrs. Ezenwa who spoke very well, she represented us at that regional meeting and she made a very wonderful presentation. We were accepted at the regional level and from there; the president went to talk to other regional presidents on our behalf to vote for us. FIATA has about six regions and you have to convince your own region if not you will not get it.
If you are elected as the chairman of the council, what will be your immediate priority?
My aim is to first of all work on training, this is my first priority; let our people be trained, you can see every organization now in the world it is focusing on training and retraining of manpower. We must acquaint ourselves with the use of modern technology in freight forwarding, because right now, we are lacking behind. When we first came into CRFFN, our first challenge was talking with the inspection agents and immediately Cotecna got our message and that us why they sent seven of us for training in the UK at the British International Freight Forwarders Academy, and we expect more, even now we have written to SGS and Globalscan because it is capacity building and it’s in their contract to train. What they are doing is that they are only training Customs; they are not training freight forwarders. By the time I get there, these are the things that we will tackle, we have to go back to study how modern-day freight forwarding is done, everyone must embrace it. Training will eradicate illiteracy in freight forwarding because now when you look at our Act it is basically on training, to train the freight forwarders and to regulate the control of freight forwarding in Nigeria and that is the main area I will focus on. I will also ensure that greater unity is engendered among freight forwarding associations, to see that they speak with one voice. I will not interfere with what they are doing, but I will ensure that all freight forwarders embrace unity and education. I will bring in the best standard, whatever they are doing in Europe Asia and the USA that is making freight forwarding to grow must also happen here in Nigeria.
Who is Alhaji Hakeem Olanrewaju?
I was born about 49years ago, I am from Abeokuta, I schooled in Lagos, Abeokuta and I also schooled in Ibadan. I joined freight forwarding 20 years ago, I have been living my life schooling in Lagos and living in Apapa here, I am always around the area, I have seen most of these things and I know how in those days tenants of my father used to be clearing agents too and those are some of things that make me to love the job, I looked at how they did it then and I decided that they need to improve on the job. I told myself that if I have the opportunity to be there and make the type of money they are making, my mission is to change the face of the business of clearing and forwarding as they called it then.
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