The Chairman, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Apapa Chapter, Dr. Fred Ajuzie has absolved the National leadership of NAGAFF and of all the associations that took part in the suspended withdrawal of service embarked upon recently by freight forwarders against APMT and ENL .
It has been alleged that but for compromise on the part of some of the National Officers of some the protesting association, the strike would have continued to some certain extent.
Speaking in an a chat with newsmen in Lagos on Tuesday, Dr. Ajuzie said that it was not unusual for people to gossip when an action like this happened arguing that the leadership whom people accuse of compromise were the ones who gave them a nod to carry out the action.
He however stated that just like any father would do to his children, the national leaderships only intervened when they believed it was expedient for them to sit down and iron out their differences with the management of APMT and reach an accord.
He said,” I hope that journalists are not out to peddle some rumours? I don’t know anything about compromise against our national leaders. It is usual for people to gossip when this kind of thing happens. So, I wouldn’t say that they sold out our struggle. They supported us and that was why the strike could last these twelve days”.
“So, we are in touch with them always. Without their approval, I am only a Chapter Chairman, before I started off the strike, I consulted them and they said go ahead if you know you can be able to sustain it. If somebody asks you to go ahead, will he now turn around to scuttle it?”
“But when the need became expedient, just like a father, there are certain things he will now see and discover that it is no longer healthy, he must advice you and that was the advice that brought about the immediate call off of the strike”.
Reacting on the allegation that cronies of APMT were asking for their phone numbers and were calling them and making financial promises to them on the ground that they call off the action, Ajuzie had this to say,” yes, there could be such calls, probably to members of my team but for Fred Nnam Ajuzie, such calls did not come to me”.
“The kind of calls that came to me was that they appreciate what we are doing, that we should be careful that this is about government, that they will come to pick you up”.
On the gains of the strike, he said that the effect of the strike would manifest in two months time when every ongoing discussions must have been finalized.
“The gridlock that you see in this place, you can find out that now, there is a gridlock but after two weeks, watch out, there won’t be any gridlock. We are discussing because one of the things causing problems on our roads are empty containers coming directly to APMT. Instead of going to APMT, they use the roads as the storage facility, these are the things that we discussed critically and after now, it will not happen again”, he said.
