This disunity will hinder members of the association from coming together to demand for their rights. It is until they come together as one family before they can achieve their goals and objectives. Even those making issues calling themselves shipowners, are they owners of a ship? If you check well, if they have any percentage on a vessel ownership, it might not be more than 30 or 50 percent. They need to talk to each other. Let them come together and be one. That is the only time they can move forward.
This is democracy. People are bound to be disgruntled one way or the other; most especially after the elections. We have been trying to reach out to them. We have been talking to them and letting them know the benefits of working together. This is because it is only in unity that we can stand. I believe they will come. Let me use this opportunity to appeal to all members who are disgruntled one way or the other to come back and let us form a united association. It is in unity that we can achieve our collective objectives.
For the past eight years, NISA has not moved forward. They should support the new executives, so that they can move forward. I believe many of them are looking forward to the Cabotage Vessels Financing Fund but they need to be united to achieve this and foreign shipowners can partner with them, so that they can move forward. One may not fully understand the grievances of the aggrieved members, but they should table their grievances and I don’t think why they should be afraid. It is not proper to just kick against the elections.
We have called for peace. We have very important issues in the industry rather than dealing with these minor issues in my opinion. We want everybody to come on board. The elections have been held. Some people are not happy for reasons best known to them, but we have a lot of important issues to tackle. We are in need of a lot of changes as far as the Nigerian shipowners are concerned. We do not believe we should spend a lot of time fighting ourselves. Everyone should shift ground and work together in moving the association forward. The tenure is only two years, nothing more. So why do we need to stifle the association, because you are not happy with the outcome. In an election, one person must win and others lose.
It’s all about due process and integrity. Anything built on nothing can’t stand and I am sure,v ery soon, you will read the position of the Integrity Group. . The integrity group is made of people who believe in due process. The constitution is sacrosanct and circumventing it is promoting illegality. Nobody is fighting anybody and I shall assure you that very soon, you will hear from the integrity group.
We have been fighting for too long; eight years down the line and to whose benefit? The world is moving on but we are stagnant. So where will these end? What is the endpoint of it all? The foundation of shipping has already been laid. We should just take it on and progress but unfortunately, we are pulling ourselves backward. We need to come together as one, in order to tap into the benefits and potentials of shipping in our country. This can only be achieved with collective efforts.
There are really no issues. It is just a rancor which sometimes happens in any association where there is election. All other things are personal issues which have nothing to do with the association. So if you have a personal issue with somebody; it doesn’t mean it should affect the association or all other areas. However, we believe that we will work together and make tremendous efforts. In no time, we will all notice a positive change in NISA.
I believe mistakes were made at that election. People are only aggrieved based on the integrity of the process. We would correct it. At the end of the day, we would all sit and reconcile our positions. If it means re-conducting the election properly, we would do it. I don’t think there is any problem, there is no break-away. Everybody is expressing their dissatisfaction for the basic mistakes that were made on election day. Very soon it will be resolved.
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