Apart from being a frontline member of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Prince Olayiwola Shittu is also the chairman of the publicity committee of Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria. He is the only person who (probably because of the position he holds) who was ready to defend the Council in the face of the prolonged bashings which it has received from a cross-section of freight forwarders over its apparent slow pace of activities or outright inactivity. He did that very brilliantly last week on these pages. In this second and concluding part, he opened up on the crisis which is brewing in ANLCA and the tribal dichotomy in the association.
Why has it been difficult for ANLCA to conduct elections into its various chapters?
We had a plan to conduct elections in all the chapters. When we conducted elections in Apapa when I was ASECO chairman, we stood our grounds. I am proud of myself, because I can tell you that there is nowhere on record where somebody will say I spent money to go and become this or that when we were in charge of ASECO. As long as you make it the highest bidder, the product will always be – those you cannot control, because, I have heard somebody said it before that: I spent N2 Million to be chairman, where do you think I will get the money back. So he does what he wants, he’s not subject to anybody. But also those who collected the N2Million have not helped the association. One of the reasons why there is problem in the chapters before the election is that there are people who have spent their money and they have been given guarantees that with the money they have spent, they are going to become this or that. Suddenly you disqualify them after they have spent money; they will make sure that the election does not hold. But what did we do during my tenure: we transparently displayed voters list; we gave room for people to object; we gave room for owners of license to come forward and say this is not my representative, this is my representative. We have records. We made sure that we invited security agencies to be part of our screening. But then, you know, when government changes hand, even when you try to be good, your goodness might not be good enough to certain individuals. They said we should step aside, we stepped aside and those who came after us are probably using their own style. I can tell you what I’m telling you now because of the experiences I have had before, and that is why I’m telling you that it is difficult to conduct those elections once the procedure is compromised.
There appears to be division in ANLCA along tribal lines, why?
The case of ANLCA is like the case of Nigeria. People in the South will cry that the northerners are dominating; when census is conducted, northerners have the largest number; when we look at the number of local government councils in Nigeria, northerners have the largest number; you go to the National Assembly they have the largest number, why wouldn’t they get what they want. However, I know where you are going. The Oodua group is complaining that the Igbos have taken over, but I want to tell you that Oodua group created the problems that exist, because those who called themselves leaders of the Oodua have misled the people for too long. It is the same group of people who call themselves leaders that are still remaining as leaders. There is no succession, there is no time one has seen the youths taking over and becoming elders. It is the same group of people who have for the past 20 years claimed to be at the forefront of Oodua maritime group, they are the same people, if we want to tell ourselves the truth, this must change. Now let me tell you something; democracy is a game of numbers and democracy is about election, right? What are the criteria for participation; you register at the chapter levels with your license. You must work with a license. Whatever you are doing in the ports today, you must have a license to belong to ANLCA; whether the license belong to you or belong to Mr ‘A’ and Mr ‘A’ has agreed that you should work with his license, then it means that I’m working for that company, because the licenses are corporate identities themselves. Then you register and you participate at your chapter level. Participation means you are registered in that chapter; everything they do in the chapter you are part of it: If they call for meeting you go there. And then when they are doing the chapter election, who will win? Is it not the group of people that have the largest number of registered licenses that will now determine who their leader will be at the chapter level and those are the leaders that determines the national leaders! Why are you complaining?
Over the years, the leaders in Oodua have always looked at elections as negotiable. They will negotiate that out of seven slots, you must give the Yorubas three, you must give the Yorubas four, they always negotiate. You negotiate because you are in a position of weakness; you are not in a position of strength. We are not encouraging our people; some of them have been in the port for 30 years they don’t own a license. That time when you can get license with N150, 000 or N250, 000, the leaders were not helping the younger ones to obtain a license. The Igbos encourage their brothers to go to the village, borrow money and go and get a license. So when you have more Ibos with licenses, who determines who takes over. You hear them saying: Apapa is our own, it belongs to the Yorubas and I ask: how many Yorubas are registered in Apapa chapter? That is one of the reasons I don’t see face to face with them. I have never been invited to any Oodua meeting because, they say I am an Ibo man; if telling the truth makes me an Ibo man then, its okay by me.. Secondly, if you call Oodua maritime now and say to them: look there is need for us to empower some of our people who have licenses and who are even registered members to go and contest elections, but they will need money for logistics, they need to go round, they need to print posters and also campaign, let us contribute N10, 000 each, how many of the so called leaders will bring the money, they won’t. But what they do instead is that – you are a Yoruba man, you want to stand for election, rather than help you to win that election, they expect you to bring money to them before they tell give you the go ahead. The Igbos will not do that, they will gather round you and sponsor you, because you are one of their own. That is the problem of our association and that behaviour of those individuals has translated into a canker worm for the association. As long as we are doing everything by number of licenses then, it has not ended. In fact I want you to quote me because I have been so bitter, the same group of leaders will sit down and take money from an Igbo man and advise their younger ones to vote for the Igbo man. The man wins election you are now crying that the Ibos have taken over. I don’t know what people are talking about! On the day of election, you will see Yoruba people lining up behind the Ibo candidate , they are boys to some of the so called leaders who have told them that this is the person we are voting for, because they have distributed N5,000 to them; and you are complaining that you are marginalized, you marginalized yourself!
There seem to be a problem with the role of the association’s board of trustees, why?
The arrangement that we have in the constitution is that when the national executive completes its term, it is dissolved at a next meeting and the board of trustees serves as a stop gap and elections are conducted within three months. So where there is no election within three months, something must be responsible. Suddenly, we heard that they are saying that elections must be conducted in all the chapters before elections are conducted into the national executive council. But that is never the norm, because all the chapters do not have elections at the same time. And then our constitution gives room for caretaker committees in places where there are no elections. And caretakers committees of chapters have been known to attend national executive meetings, so what is going on! I am as baffled as you are, because I am not in a position to even say this is why election is not taking place.
How are you sure that they do?
I don’t have to prove it, but I am telling you I have had friends who are CGs of Customs who have complained that: every time these people will just come and be asking of containers. I don’t need to prove anything that it is a known fact to all Nigerians that once you are in a position where you can use your opportunity, use it. What are you probing? I need to ask, who does not know the problems of Customs? They have multifarious problems. They are poorly paid, poorly motivated, poor welfare package. You put a cat to guide dry fish for you and it sees the opportunity of having a nibble, you think it will not take? A hungry man cannot be put in charge of food and he stays hungry. The Customs officer collects money for government running into billions of Naira, by virtue of the job some them have the discretion to either allow you go or pay the correct duty. And the man is hungry; he has problems that he needs money for and you say he should be patriotic. Let’s go to Central Bank. I used to remember in those days when I was to work in NPA, some of my colleagues went to the banks to work, they were saying when they leave the bank and they are able to work in the Central bank then it means God has answered them because there was disparity in pay between the Central bank and the regular commercial banks talking of forty years ago. Then look at NNPC, when NNPC was established, there was disparity between the real public servant, why? Government says it is motivation because they are in charge of our oil, Nigeria rests on oil; Central bank is in charge of our money and our currency; and then Customs is in charge of nothing! I remember one of the motivations for Customs in those days was that if you as a Customs officer help government to recover underpayment, you are entitled to a percentage. So an officer will look at himself and probably say: if I collect N100, 000 from this duty of 5Million and government is going to give me commendation and I am going to get 50,000 in addition to commendation letter. He is likely to say: I beg my dear go and pay the correct duty. He gets something from government and he gets commendation. It could be an incentive for him not to collude. You are asking the Customs officers to go and man the border with no accommodation, no motivation and maybe his salary is paid in Maiduguri or Sokoto and he is at Idiroko or Seme and you ask him to stay there. He sleeps in the office until the office says no! You can no longer sleep here; he gets a room which is owned by a smuggler and he knows that the money he’s expecting from government for salary is inadequate and irregular, what do you expect? The orientation of Customs has to change and who will change it? It is those in charge. It is when you have given the man what he deserves that you can now call him to order. As long as they are in a state of what Sapele people call hegemege; when a man is in a state of hegemege, he doesn’t know how he got there, he doesn’t know how to get out and he becomes irrational, he does anything.
I tell you something Customs used to be a profession. When I was going to NPA, I had a choice of going to join Customs, what made me to change my mind then was that I wore uniform throughout my secondary school, how will I continue to wear uniform? That time uniform was beautiful- white shirt, green trouser, you put on tie. Some of my mates who joined then have today retired or have been retired. You look at it as a career. After what is commonly called Abuja ‘88 (it is a euphemism for the massive transfer of people from the civil service in the North into Customs service, the reason being that they want to bridge the gap between the employment profile which they claimed was lopsided and that there are more people from one section of the country than the other), Customs never remained the same. It was done wrongly. The idea was good, I believe in one Nigeria and that lopsided appointments can be corrected. But when you now bring in people who sometimes are on level seven in the states’ civil service with no experience and you. Then suddenly, you now discover that there is no career again, you see people who came in as graduates being left behind because of political considerations and the boys they taught now became their boss. What they ought to have done in 1988 was to begin from recruitment and as they are carrying out new recruitments, they spread it all over the country on equal representation, hoping that those people will now meet up and their career progression continues.
Where do you situate corruption in the ports?
Sometimes, they accuse Customs of corruption and also say that customs agents are involved. The Customs man is not going to get the money by himself; he needs the agents to get the money and bring to him. The agents also need money, so when he sees somebody who is ready to compromise and then you have a willing agent and you also have a willing importer that is where corruption can manifest. If the importer is not willing, there is no agent that can force the importer to play ball. If the customs officer is not willing there is no way a customs agent can succeed but it requires the interplay of all of these people. Apart from this, suddenly somebody in Central Bank or Ministry of Finance just believed involving commercial banks is the solution to collection of revenue. You will remember that in those days, Customs was collecting revenue. In those days they used to pay cash to Customs, then later we started paying with draft. Later they said No and n went and said that we should start paying through the banks. How come that with the banks’ involvement, we are still having massive fraud? How come? The bank people are business people. For collecting the money on behalf of government they have a percentage. The agent doesn’t have percentage; the Custom officer doesn’t have percentage of collection, so where does he get his own percentage, by arranging themselves. And inside the bank itself, the bank official knows that the bank is making a hell of money, so how does he make his own money? – by aiding a corrupt agent in getting bank certified documents to go and carry load without paying duty.
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