Following reports alleging that some maritime stakeholders have been meeting to articulate the needs of the maritime sector in Nigeria for onwards transmission to the President elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, the National Coordinator, Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNIFFIEC), Sir Osita Patrick Chukwu has advised the stakeholders to allow Gen. Buhari to settle down in the office before wearing him out with their demands.
Chukwu who was speaking in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos on Friday argued that it was untimely for people to start worrying the President elect with problems since he was yet to be sworn in as the substantive President adding that anything could still happen in the next two or three weeks.
According to him,” Giving him this one, that one, I don’t believe that is how it should be because until Jonathan entered office, we never met him one day until he settled down. Let them first of all allow this man to settle down. He has not been inaugurated, he has not been given the flag to fly, he is just an elected President, nobody knows what is going to happen in the next two weeks or in the next three weeks, nobody knows. Let the man come in first, settle down, then create his cabinet then we know from where we can approach him”.
“Let them allow the man, even the APC (All Progressives Congress) members are not helping matters, they are the ones to disturb the man the most. Allow him to settle down, give him chance, let there be peace for the man to work effectively and efficiently , if not, he will commit the same blunder as others before him. Almost all the people that defected to the party that are of the PDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), the problems they have in the PDP will soon arise in the PAC. It is something we need endurance and we need time for the incoming government to work”.
On whether or not those stakeholders were actually meeting Gen. Buhari in the interest of the maritime sector or for their own personal gains, he answered.” It might be that they are doing this for personal gratification but I have not seen, come to think of it; Ports Consultative Forum, I don’t know their job, what is their job? Customs Consultative Committee, I don’t know their job, Maritime Consultative Forum, I don’t know their job, what are all these people doing? And the port is filled with a hell of decay, a hell of impunity among them and what have you”.
He added,” Those people jostling for all these positions, let them allow Buhari to settle down. Gen. Buhari will ask questions, when he looks at the ports, he will ask question, when he ask questions we now come in. Don’t give him too much burden as if he is running away, he is coming to be the President. He has a manifesto, he must project and promote the manifesto, and he must be liable to his people for all the manifestoes he made already during and after his campaigns. If he fails to meet up with his promises as regards the people’s mandate given to him, he has himself to blame”.
