His emergence as the national president of NAGAFF is typical of the association; no struggle, no friction, just consensus. And since his emergence, the level of encomium that has been showered on him bespeaks his wide acceptance by the entire membership of NAGAFF.
In this interview, Eugene Nweke speaks on his vision for the association and other issues.
How did you receive the news of your appointment as national president?
I didn’t receive my appointment as national president of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders, (NAGAFF), in any particular way; it is a normal day to day exigency. So it didn’t come to me by surprise because before now there have been plans to actually reposition the association for optimal efficiency. Therefore, when it became obvious that the Board of Trustees (BOT) made the public declaration, I was short of words because I know that it is a call to service. So it does not call for celebration because much is expected from me. It requires total commitment and dedication, therefore I didn’t see it as news but rather I see it as another step forward.
What is NAGAFF membership strength?
Well, as I came in this morning, you can see that I came with our computer analysis. We are actually trying to articulate our membership list to the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) and part of the requirement is that we should bring our numerical strength. Therefore, what we are trying to do is to remove from the list names our late members who, for the past ten years, are no longer functional. It is a movement; man lives, man dies. We also want to know those who are financially responsive to what we are doing. At the end of the day, after proper scrutiny of the list, we have presently 2,577 members. These are the financially up-to- date members of NAGAFF. Then we have again about 755 non- financially up-to-date. So put together, we have about 4,355 members
What are your agenda for NAGAFF?
With team work, I intend to have collective responsibility and an all- inclusive leadership. Besides, I also intend to consolidate and intensify on the level of public advocacy achieved so far.
There will also be responsiveness to the plights and yearnings of freight forwarders because we are going to put in place a mechanism that will compel members to tap into other spectrum or chains of freight forwarding profession.
Membership drive will also be intensified in my desired effort to Achieve 15, 000 registered ones as well as protecting the right of Members within the industry including securing life insurance policy for
Every member, specifically, there will be an exchange of expertise by projecting, consulting and encouraging members to attend international seminars and conferences while widening the scope for positive collaboration with Stakeholders.
There will be enhancement of professionalism by propagating the gospel Of integrity and trust as watchword and basic tool for healthy freightForwarding practices.
I will encourage training and re-training aim at preparing members for skill acquisition, instil sense of professional ethic through CRFFN even as discipline and due process shall be adhered to in all ramifications.
Also operational transformation and re-branding through massive enlightenments, wealth creation and opportunity will be strictly adhered to.
What further efforts are you making to strengthen NAGAFF?
There are two things that we should be looking at. One is our tradition which is public advocacy. We need to intensify on it because a lot of anomalies are taking place in the maritime industry. Then again we will look at manners and method of our administration. There are going to be changes. They say that administration differs from one person to another. I am not saying I am going to lead NAGAFF the way Dr. Aniebonam or my immediate past national president, Usman Sanusi did. But with God on my side, I will give my own style of leadership and I believe that majority of NAGAFF members will appreciate that.
How will you access your roles as NAGAFF electoral commission chairman?
I am one person that believes that if given conducive atmosphere to do the right thing, there is nothing we cannot do because I have been in NAGGAF and I understand the orientation and the psyche of my people. So if you want to conduct an election you must take into consideration all these, including what they believe in.
A NAGAFF member, no matter how you look at that person, is somebody that believes in justice and fairness. Therefore, it behoves
on me as NAGAFF electoral boss to put in place a structure of transparent electoral process that will be acceptable and appreciated by the members. So, that we did immediately after our inauguration in year December 2009. We make it very, very mandatory that once you are a registered member of NAGAFF you are free to go ahead, pick a form at whatever chapter or from our website and come forward to the NEC office where we will give you necessary advice, give you our guidelines and tell you what you are required to do. Nobody was pencilled down to be a chairman. The whole thing was decided at the polls. So its all about you going out there as aspirant or contestant to explain your manifesto, sell your ideas, give reasons why you want to serve, let them know you, listen to you, seen the commitment and seriousness in you after which they will ask you questions. Then you are the one that will market yourself. We cannot market you because we are an electoral commission. If at the end of the day, you convinced people at your chapter, they registered and come here to vote, the commission will not decide who wins, it is the electorate that will decide who wins whatever position at the association’s election.
So put together, I do remember that you are one of the observers during elections and noticed that we didn’t just hold these elections one day. We don’t muddle up issues as we pick two chapters per day and in doing that, we take into consideration that some chapters that are volatile. We have some chapters that have a lot of members. What we did was to bring a chapter that doesn’t have large membership and pare them. By that we are able to control the situation so the transparency during the election was apparent.
When you planned for election, don’t take anything for granted, go ahead, do it and be transparent. Once you are focused in what you are doing you will succeed but if you are biased you are bound to make mistakes which will come by way of altercations and may messed up the whole exercise. In other for us to avoid that, we remain unbiased umpire from the beginning to the last election.
Now following the changes at the National Executive Council of NAGAFF, that made me the national president, it won’t be democratic for me to hold sway as the electoral commission’s chairman. Under that arrangement what I did was to actually relinquish that position to a most senior member of NAGAFF in that commission, Mr. Oluwole Adeyemi who is now the incumbent chairman. My secretary still remains. He is Mazi Chidiebere and three new persons were injected into the commission. They are Elder Ofoma, Dan Okoro and, Chief Emeka Onuoha. They were committed to serve as screening officers during my tenure. Now they have gone in there and they will work hands in hand with the existing members. To ensure that the remaining elections into three chapters will be concluded by May 2nd and while they do that, they will now set up their machinery to go down to South East to conduct elections into different offices of NAGAFF. By June they should be moving to the northern zone. We are not in a haste to get you to serve but we actually want to get the right people that have the spirit of service to occupy elective positions inn NAGAFF. It will take us sometime because it is a maiden election and we want to set a standard that the incoming electoral commission will build upon.
There have been complaints that NAGAFF is a sectional association, how will you defend this?
Well, to me, those who are making such allegations are ignorant because membership of any association is voluntary. You don’t go and start knocking at somebody’s door because you want him to come and join your association. Those who indicate their desire to join are welcomed. It is very open for everybody. It is an association with national outlook which has proved those with sectional mentality wrong. Let them go to the four chapters where we have conducted elections and find out whether other tribes did not participate.
If a particular chapter has more tribes than the other, it does not mean that other tribes are not represented. So I disagree with those who have such insinuation. They should look at themselves and go for further orientation on the formation of an association. Anytime we come here, we see ourselves as Nigerians irrespective of our tribes and that’s what association should be.
The Federal Character issue is reflected in our association. For instance the immediate past president of NAGAFF is Usman Sanusi. Is he an Ibo man? I’m now the president and my deputy is Oluwole Adeyemi. Is he an Ibo man? No. Eshiet is from south south. Therefore NAGAFF is open to everybody. We are not coercing anybody to come and join NAGAFF. If you believe in our ideology, you are welcome on board. It is an association of like minds. If you are interested, join us and let’s move the freight forwarding business forward.
How will you describe Dr Aniebonam’s leadership style?
Dr Aniebonam is a dogged man. He is a committed officer of NAGAFF. He is a man with a vision. He is a man that believes in himself. He is a man that has political will, economic will and he is a social man. So, when you put these attributes in one man, what do you expect? It is result. He is one man that stands out within the freight forwarding industry. There is no major freight forwarding business in Nigeria that I don’t know but Dr Aniebonam stands out. In fact, every freight forwarders looks up to him and wants to be like him. Why Eugene Nweke is a different person is because I cannot be Dr Aniebonam. It is when you believe in yourself as he believes in himself that you will bring out that thing in you and people will begin to appreciate you. That’s the next level we are going. Some complain about his style. Well, that is his style. Gowon’s style is not the same as Obasanjo; Shagari’s style is not the same style as Babangida. Hence Dr Aniebonam has one style that everybody appreciates and will like to emulate. But the question is what do you have from inside of you when it comes to leadership?
What other reforms are we expecting under your leadership?
Promptness. Henceforth, we will take time to build leaders across the chapters not money seekers and that’s why we are taking our time to organize a seminar and workshops on public advocacy and leadership delivery. Then, as soon as we finished our inauguration, every chapter will go for that because I believe that if we have able leaders in all the chapters, then we are going to ensure that responsibility is entrusted into the right hand. I also want to actually bring NAGAFF to a pedestal where any other person will accept it, trust it, willing to do business with it. We will make ourselves much more accessible than before and NAGAFF will now go into other issues because right now I will set up a committee that will look into what we call welfare.
Good a thing, there is a legislative council for freight forwarding practice. Ours is to get their code of ethic and professional conduct. We will put up a befitting package that will encourage members to be with us, to consolidate it with us and annually, they will pay their subscription fees.
When you provide welfare package that is attractive, this will make your members to believe in you. We want to see how to empower members in creating wealth. We will use the CRFFN to train these people and empowering them in term of intellectual property. That’s the primary reason the council was set up. We will be doing our best and see what we can achieve within four years.
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