Chief Peter Obih, is a member of the governing council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), he is also the Chairman, Board of Trustee of the unregistered International Freight Forwarding Association (IFFA). Chief Obih is also a BoT member of the Association of the Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA). In this interview with Anozie Egole, he spoke extensively on the causes of the crises rocking the BoT of ANLCA and also the way out of ports congestion.
“It is better the tank farms leave the ports, let the ports serve its purpose; there was a reason the ports were established and let that reason be taken care of”
Tell us about your journey into ANLCA?
I joined freight forwarding business as far back as 1987 and immediately, I decided to join one association and after going through all the associations in the industry as at then, it was only ANLCA, in fact then it was only ANLCA, so I joined them. And in 1997, I contested for the chairmanship of Apapa chapter of the association and I won. I served for 8 good years and after my tenure, I also served under different committees before being elevated to board membership and up till today I am still serving as a member of the board of ANLCA.
What would you say have been the major cause of the crisis at the Board of Trustees of ANLCA?
Talking about the cause of the crisis in the BoT of ANLCA, I will attribute it to impatience among some of the members. That is exactly what is happening there, just exercise a little patience and you get what you want, but you don’t want to wait, you want to come in today and be everything today; that is the cause of the whole thing. For example if you are from APC and you are joining PDP today, you don’t expect to come and be their presidential candidate because there are other people who have been queuing there before you.
So what do you think is the way forward towards resolving the matter?
Well, I cannot say; because now we are in court we have gone to court and we are still in court, so it is the court that will determine now. If they want to settle out of court they should approach. When they come genuinely I think I can listen to them, but if they don’t want let the court give us their verdict.
Tell us more about your ambition of becoming the Secretary of the BoT?
No you see, this is why I said that over zealousness of some people is the cause of all these things. We have in ANLCA the way we go in our election; if the president is from a particular tribe, the other tribe should produce vice and the tribe that produces vice will also produce the General Secretary; that is it, there is no other thing. So in the Board, Chief Henry Njoku is the Chairman of the Board and the Vice is, Sanni Shitu, so the secretary is Taiye Oyeniyi. The Yoruba tribe that produced vice chairman also produced secretary, but now because of their over-zealous attitude, I don’t know what they have in mind.
Few people or elements in the board are the people causing this confusion, how can a chairman be presiding over a meeting and someone from behind will raise up his hand and say that they want to conduct an election, is that how to conduct election . If we want to conduct an election we have to meet and inform everybody about the election, that is how to properly conduct an election. Not a member rise up in a meeting maybe they came out from a meeting before meeting and say they want to conduct an election and some of them will support, you don’t carry people along. And you will start telling me that this person is the chairman, vice, secretary and all that, from what they are doing, they claimed to have collected the chairmanship and secretary of the board, is it how it used to be. If you want to have an election, there is a proper way of doing that which you carry everybody along and they have not gone through that process, so this arrangement will never see the light of the day, it cannot work.
We learnt you were invited by the Police in connection with the lingering ANLCA BoT crisis, what was the outcome of the invitation?
I am not aware of any invitation by the Police, like I told you the case is still in the court and that is all.
Are you still the BoT chairman of IFFA?
Yes of course, till tomorrow.
As a board member of CRFFN, what is the first assignment you want the Council to handle?
That is what we are doing, what we have to do is to start on ways of taking the council to the next level and you know when you give birth to a child today, there is what we called teething problem. So we should expect that in the areas of forming committees and all that and when we are through with that, we will move ahead.
Why do you think the terminals in the ports are filled up?
In 2000-2001 when Kema Chikwe was the Minister of Transportation, she visited the ports and I remembered telling her that those things they are doing with Dangote and Tank farms, in the nearest future these things will backfire, I foresaw it then. That was when they were giving Dangote the Bull Nose to use as cement factory and other tank farms that were coming up then. I remember mentioning it to her that in the nearest future nobody can come into these ports. It is not the roads, if you think that the roads are the major problems, it is not the roads. Until something is done about the tank farms and everything, when you finish the roads now you will see, it will still be the same thing because the port is being used for other issues; so it will continue like that. Road contributed 50% of the congestion at the ports, but I am telling you that even if you get the roads done today, the congestion will continue. It is better the tank farms leave the ports, let the ports serve its purpose; there was a reason the ports were established and let that reason be taken care of. In the past when there were no tank farms and other things we didn’t suffer. Today after clearing your consignments you will find out that the amount you didn’t even spend in clearing your goods, a truck will collect it from you, are we now bringing the cost of doing business down or up? So it is the government that approbates and reprobates. Inconsistent policies are one of the problems we are having in the sector.
What do you have to say about the proliferation of associations in the sector?
Well there is nothing I can say they are welcome; that is why we have CRFFN, the council is there to register and regulate them. From here we can regulate them; I registered them as the chairman of the registration committee of the first and second council. So there is no way you can register somebody who is not your member, you cannot regulate somebody you don’t know, you have to bring the person in and regulate. That was why I registered all of them. So from here we regulate the whole associations, is welcomed development.
Discussion about this post