Mr Segun Musa is arguably a man at peace with his people, this is obvious from the rate at which his office at the popular ‘NAHCO’ at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos is bombarded by freight forwarders. The obeisance he gets as he walks around is a manifestation of his popularity. From a sole administrator to chairman and desirous of a second term as chairman of NAGAFF at the airport, Segun Musa is your modern day example of a successful freight forwarder. He also parades intimidating academic and social credentials.
Can you briefly introduce yourself?
I am a Nigerian and a Lagosian. I started my education at Saint Paul Anglican primary school Mafoluku, my secondary school was at Ajao estate grammar school, my first experience was at the NYC where I had my diploma in refrigerating and air conditioning and from there I proceeded to federal technical college in Yaba and I graduated as one of the best students, from there I moved to Ogun state University where I did advanced diploma in shipping, from there I moved to Federal university of technology, Owerri where I did my post graduate diploma in maritime technology, having done that I moved to Lagos state university where I did another diploma in international relations and strategic studies and I also proceeded for my masters in international relations and strategic studies. After this, I did another masters degree in transport planning; in continuation of that I commenced another masters degree programme in maritime law, but unfortunately I could not complete that due to the appointment I got at that time. Apart from all these, I am a transport planner and a member of some institutes like: the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, I am also a member of the Rotary club, and presently, the president of rotary club of Apakun, I am also a member of board of governors, Ajao estate grammar school, president of old students’ association of the school. Presently and very importantly, I am the immediate past chairman of Murtala Mohammed International Airport chapter of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF).
You have quite an excellent dossier, what informed your decision to be a freight forwarder?
I have a kin interest in studying Aeronautics Engineering and in the 1980s I gained admission into California Institute of Technology as well as Miami University to study Aeronautic engineering, but unfortunately, I could not get student visa and that prevented me from pursuing that programme. Because of my kin interest in anything that have to do with aviation, transport and shipping, I decided to engage myself in freight forwarding and that was why I started the training in 1989 as a freight forwarder. Immediately I joined the industry, I observed that there are so many lapses and I took it upon myself as a challenge that if I have the opportunity, I should be able to bring the industry to further limelight where people will appreciate it more and see it just like any other profession like: engineering, medicine, journalism and others. I observed that it is a ‘green’ area where people have not started taking advantage of, I have that believe in me that if I can put in more effort to understand what the industry is all about, I will be able to effect some changes in the industry and contribute my own quota. These are parts of what informed my interests me to become a freight forwarder.
What is your assessment of freight forwarding as a profession?
The freight forwarding profession is as old as the beginning of the world; practitioners only improve on what they met on ground. It is an all- inclusive profession where we talk about shipping, freight forwarding, transport planning and management, when you look at shipping itself it’s all about movement of freight and it’s as old as the world itself. I believe that in Nigeria, we are beginning to understand the need for us to strengthen the industry for it to bring out its best. I believe that these are part of what informed the establishment of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria, because in the recent past, you will quite agree with me that people do not really know what the industry is all about, the establishment of the council is just the beginning of people getting to know the role of the industry.
Since you have mentioned it, what is your assessment of the Council since its creation?
It will interest you to know that before the establishment of the council, we do have associations, but they were unable to satisfy the yearnings of people in the industry. Some practitioners even have decided not to join associations, because it is a fact that a lot of people do not have much trust in these associations. The introduction of the council will now bring all the associations and people that have decided not to join associations together under one umbrella, it will not kill the associations but rather it will strengthen them, because the association is what will assist the council itself; they are the instruments that will supply the council with tools to function efficiently and effectively, these are part of what gave us the confidence that the council will respond to the yearnings and aspirations of virtually everybody in the industry. Presently, the council has commenced registration and if you look at the pace with which the council is moving, it is faster than most of the similar councils that has been established in the past, so I don’t see them to be too slow because definitely every establishment will have to pass through a period before finally finding its footings. I believe the council will meet most expectations.
What informed your decision to join NAGAFF?
All the associations that we have in the industry are very strong and very dynamic, they have lofty ideas, they are very innovative and they are all good, but what informed my decision to join NAGAFF is the fact that I am a freight forwarder and not just a local clearing agent. My understanding of customs license is that it is only a local interface between the freight forwarder and the Nigeria Customs License; you don’t need customs license to work as a freight forwarder because freight forwarding is all- encompassing; we have people in the haulage section, we have people in packaging, carriers, the handlers and so on while customs license is just limited to the interface between you and customs at the point of destination or origin. My company is into freight forwarding and we have our offices in many parts of the world, what we do is to bring cargo from point of origin to the final destination, do the local clearing and do delivery, so our activity is for freight forwarding and not just customs clearing. So I prefer to align with an association that can handle all the supply chain rather than only the local activities and that was what informed my joining NAGAFF.
For how long have you been chairman of NAGAFF at the airport?
I started as a sole administrator in 2007 and in the same year, I was confirmed as the chairman and since then until recently I have been the chairman.
What were the challenges that confronted you as a sole administrator and as chairman?
When I came into office, the first thing I had to attend to was to introduce a kind of orientation for my members and we succeeded in making all our members role model within the environment in the sense that anybody that comes around the airport and who has the opportunity to interact with NAGAFF members will want to join the association because all of them are just like marketers, the way they comport themselves, the way they dress and discuss issues encourages a lot of people to align with NAGAFF. Having done that, I also realised the need to train our members because we are in a dynamic industry where things change very fast. So we started organising training programmes; we had one at Sheraton Hotels in Ikeja and virtually all relevant agencies in the industry came around to educate our members about what they need to know as regards government policies for and it was a very successful event and eventually our members came out of these programmes very well informed. Apart from these, on regular basis we educate our members; some of them come around to the office where they ask questions on what they don’t know and we try as much as possible to enlighten them. We also collaborate with all the government agencies within the airport, we form alliances with them. We also try to extend our goodwill to stakeholders; we have donated apron to the Police we donated aprons because the airport is a restricted area and anybody that works within the area must have their reflective jackets, so we had to get reflective jackets for the airport Police command, we also work with the customs, we are more or less the first point of call when anything happens at the airport. From time to time we offer advice and within a short period we get issues resolved and that’s why we are able to maintain a peaceful environment within the airport throughout my tenure in office.
Do you have desire for a second term?
I would have loved to say no, but due to the fact that I don’t have the mandate, the people have the mandate and they have called on me that they will prefer me to go for another term so who am I to refuse. I love serving humanity, I love contributing my own quota, when I was called upon to come and contest again, I think I owe them that respect to honour them and that’s why I have decided to come out again.
If you get a second term, what do you have in stock for your members?
Since NAGAFF believes in sustainable freight forwarding practice, I believe in training and retraining of our members. Part of what we highlighted but, we were unable to achieve during my first tenure in office was to step up the programme of educating ourselves. We are contemplating a joint training forum for freight forwarders in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa. Before I left office during my first term, the preparation has been in top gear, I am in touch with the freight forwarding practitioners in Ghana as well as in South Africa, so if I am privileged to come back into office, it is going to be the first priority because I want to showcase our industry globally and also want our members to exchange ideas with other freight forwarders in other parts of the world. We are also working on how to ease the freight integration at our border posts between Ghana, Togo, Benin Republic and Nigeria, so we also have a forum with stakeholders where we will be discussing on how to remove the bottlenecks and also address the challenges that are confronting people in terms of moving cargo through the border post. We are also trying to orientate our members to stand up tall anywhere in the world and defend their profession. These are part of what we intend to work on and at the end of the day we will have qualitative members of NAGAFF, we are also trying to link up with other NAGAFF members working at the airports outside Lagos, that is in Kano, Port Harcourt, Abuja and other international cargo airports so that we can work as a team, we are also trying to organize a joint programme between NAGAFF, NAFAC and also ANLCA at the airport that will benefit all our members because we owe them that privilege to be trained, so we are working on organizing a joint programme to train our members.
What is your advice for the younger ones who are desirous of coming into the industry or those who are already there, but with no direction?
I always appeal to anybody that wants to come into freight forwarding to take the time to lean, the practice is in learning, if they can take their time to learn, they stand to benefit in the future and that’s why we at NAGAFF have decided to embark on continuous training of our members. For the young people coming into the industry, we at NAGAFF we are always enthusiastic to train them because the future of the industry depends on all of us, if we allow it to be a case of garbage in, definitely we will have garbage out. We are trying to make sure that in a few years time, anybody that comes out to identify himself as a freight forwarder will be accorded the same respect that will be accorded the person that identifies himself as an engineer, a doctor and so on, we are also trying to make sure that we have qualitative freight forwarders because, presently the Council is trying to set a minimum standard and if we have a minimum standard in place, definitely we will see the industry having better ideas and good inputs from practitioners, it will turn the industry around, bring the best out of it for everyone and the nation at large will benefit from the freight forwarding industry. In every industry we have people who are quacks; in the freight forwarding industry we have people who are referred to as QBE (qualified by experience) we also have people who have passed through the walls of college to learn what the industry is all about and we have people that have both. So I cannot say we have quacks in the industry but rather, we have people that have either QBE or have gone through the college or who have both, so they all play a vital role in promoting the industry.
Discussion about this post