“THEY DON’T WANT THE TASK FORCE TO PARTAKE IN 100% EXAMINATION, BUT WE WILL”
…Chief Osita Okereke (‘President’, Importers Association)
When the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN) was formed, little did its founder(s) know that it will grow big to the extent that it will in-turn, father a Task Force that will (genuinely or otherwise) ensure that Nigerian entry points no longer serve as conduit pipes for arms, ammunitions and other lethal weapons. It is the activities of this Task Force that have now turned co-travelers in the IMAN train to sworn enemies. The battle line has been drawn between IMAN’s founder and ‘President’; Chief Onuchukwu James Clark and Chief Osita Okereke; member of board of trustees and ‘new President’ who has upstaged his former ‘boss’. After several attempts, we were able to track the duo down for separate interviews on the crisis-ridden IMAN. We present to you our interaction with Chief Okereke. Next week will be the turn of Chief Onuchukwu James.
For the purpose of setting the records straight, when was the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN) formed?
IMAN came on board in year 2004 when (ex-president|) Obasanjo closed down all the ports in Nigeria and seized all the containers. Some group of people brought two men to me who are: Onuchukwu James Clark and Kingsley Chikezie with a proposal on how to release the containers. Their proposal was the formation of Anambra Importers Association, but when they came to me, I told them that the name will not sell because it is not only Anambra people that import and that in my village, I have more than 20 people that import and I am not from Anambra. So we now changed it to National Importers Association of Nigeria, we made letter headed papers, we wrote to Customs, we wrote to Obasanjo and to the ministry of finance; which I took upon myself. I met Obasanjo through his chief of staff because of the same issue of opening the ports so that people can clear their goods, this was how we started. In year 2007, Obasanjo granted our request for three months and extended it again for 60 days, but we agreed that they should increase the tariff to 20 percent so that it will be better to pay money than for people to lose their goods; even if they don’t make profits, there is no problem about that. So in 2007 we tried to register the National Importers Association of Nigeria through the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) but we could not succeed. They came to me and we went to meet the Customs and after that we sat down together, myself, Kingsley Chikezie and Onuchukwu James Clark, they said we must register National Importers Association of Nigeria but I told them it is not possible because we have tried it and it was rejected, moreover anything called ‘national’ has to be registered. So I now suggested Importers Association of Nigeria which we now took to the CAC and under three weeks we were registered. So that was how Importers Association of Nigeria started, I am the person who formed the name, they came to me with Anambra Importers Association, but now this Onuchukwu is now telling the whole world that the association is his baby, it is not his baby, people make proposals that leads to the formation of a ministry, every ministry you see is proposed by somebody, but when government considers it as something useful, then they will approve it.
IMAN is an association for importers. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you this: Are you an importer?
Yes, I am.
But it appears that there are factions in IMAN, there is Chief Onuchukwu James…
We have no problem with anybody and we don’t have any faction, in every association there can be saboteurs, Onuchukwu has no capacity to challenge me in the first place, secondly we held a meeting where Onuchukwu’s the executives and even the chairman of the board were dissolved on the 13th of July when we found out that he has no capacity to lead the association. Onuchukwu embezzled our funds from 2004 till date and there was no accountability, the account he handed over was only N170,000, they signed a cheque and gave the statement of account, he bought a second- hand vehicle for N5Million which he could not pay for, the bus is now missing and it can not be traced, so he does not have the credibility to move the association forward. People never heard of Importers Association of Nigeria until I came on board, and today the name is all over; it is the association that made a proposal to the government on a partnership arrangement.
They said you were suspended from the association over a bank loan you could not account for, is it true?
From which bank did we collect the loan and in what capacity? Before you take a loan you must have collateral which you will present to the bank, so what do we have to take loan with? Let me tell you the fact, you can always go and find it out, we have not taken a dime from anybody.
Whose course is IMAN fighting?
In our constitution we have IMAN Task Force, we have now written a proposal to the government for them to approve the National Task Force as formed by IMAN; it is our own initiative in checkmating illegal goods, arms and ammunitions. There are too many ammunitions today in Nigeria, as I am talking to you we are doing our own operation somewhere in Anambra where people were kidnapped, the information came and I had to call the Commissioner of Police, so we are to checkmate the system because our security system in this country is porous and we believe we can do a lot because, first we are the importers, we have informants all over the world , that is why people are fighting us they don’t want us to be part of the 100 per cent examination, but I think they are just wasting their time.
Why do we need to have another task force despite all the agencies in the port?
Why are there ammunitions in Nigeria? Why are people being kidnapped every day? Nobody can kidnap without arms and this is why we call it illegal arms, we don’t know where they are coming from, it could be from the airport, seaport or land borders. The other time, we traced a trailer from Ghana to Onitsha before it was arrested; a trailer load of arms and it was handed over to the Commissioner of Police in Anambra State, we did it, I went to do the handing over. What is delaying us now is the military because we want to join the army with the police, the Inspector General has cooperated with us and gave us the police, but we needed more military because these people are also armed, as soon as we have the military, I tell you that Nigeria will know what we are capable of doing.
Who appointed the chairman of the task force?
We appointed the chairman of the task force, anybody that has business with us is appointed by IMAN.
Do you think that the task force can stop arms from coming into this country?
We don’t think it will stop arms from coming into this country, it will come, but our own is to arrest and apprehend, this is our own duty, we have shown an example with the one that we did, if they can beat the Customs, Police, Quarantine and every other agency from Ghana to Onitsha and when it got there, it was arrested.
How did you do it, considering that all the government apparatus could not?
One thing you should understand is that we are not taking sides and we are not ready to compromise because most of the securities agencies compromise, most of these smugglers know the Customs. For example, there was a vessel that we traced from Burkina Faso down to Shaki (in Oyo State) and about one hour to the time of action, the DPO withdrew our boys from the team, the goods were arrested because our boys had to alert the Customs and it was arrested and sent to Ikeja, our boys are not military men, they don’t have guns and can not carry out arrests empty –handed. So what they did was to alert the Customs and they in- turn got them, so we have informants all over the place, it is done with information and you must have the information before you can trace the person and arrest him.
How do you get funding since you are not a government agency?
We are not government agency, but as I am talking to you now, we are preparing our budget for 2011 under the ministry of interior, we came on board when the budget had been passed and that is why we are starved of funds. Whatever you see us doing now, we are doing it on our own; the vehicles that you see were supplied and we have not paid, we raised the loan and maybe that is the loan they are telling you that we collected from the bank, the vehicles were collected on order. It was my friend that supplied these vehicles to me, we have not paid a dime and the vehicles are worth more thanN260Million, they are about 29.
What are you proposing to get from next year’s budget?
Our take- off grant should not be less than N6Billion.
Will that not make the task force a government agency thereafter?
We are not going to lose control because, at the end of the day we are going to be a commission and it will serve under the presidency, it is a government body but it is a private partnership for now but which we know at the end of the day the government will take it over, because as soon as the government starts funding, it becomes their property.
How are you now going to deal with this issue of Chief Onuchukwu James?
Onuchukwu is not there anymore, whichever meeting that propose must hold in own national office, you can’t just go to a hotel and hold a conference, we called a meeting in Abuja and all the members of the board of trustees and all executive members were there. So forget about Onuchukwu he has no clout, he has embezzled more than N50Million of this association; including the vehicle that he bought and he has not paid for. I can swear to you that we have not seen that vehicle and Onuchukwu will be heading to prison for it, if he has any evidence against me, let him tender it, but I have more than 100 evidences against him; the way he has been collecting money from people has been well recorded and that is why he is afraid, but we have tried to see how we can forgive him because I know he is a poor man, but now that he is making noise we are going to send him to prison.
Since the task force came into existence some months, ago how many interceptions and seizures have you recorded?
We have done so many seizures but we have a very bad leadership, the leadership tried to highjack the system by trying to use the advantage for his personal use. This was why we removed the chairman and the three members. We asked them to quit and hand over all our properties back to us because we appointed them and we believe we cannot be there and they will go and indict us. Tomorrow, you may hear that the Task Force is collecting money on the road whereby we have not started working, meanwhile there are some people who go behind to collect money from smugglers, that was why we decided to remove the chairman and the western coordinator because they normally….., we asked him to hand over to the deputy chairman which is the former CP and that is where we are now. Mind you, the former chairman has another appointment, but he wanted to do the two together.
What kind of protection do you have for those who work under this task force?
They are protected because we work with the police, you can see the number of police around here, so I believe the police is a security agency with the arms to protect.
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