The immediate past National President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has decried the attitude of detractors in the association who are in the habit of smearing the image of any National President who diligently and meritoriously worked for the association.
Shittu who was reacting to allegations of embezzlement leveled against him by some members of the association said that every President in ANLCA has either gone through humiliation or outright rejection irrespective of what he has done especially when his tenure was ending.
In his words,” I don’t want to talk about the secretariat because it is a contentious issue that people just brought up. Let me just tell you what happens, every President in ANLCA has either gone through humiliation or outright rejection irrespective of what he has done especially when his tenure is ending. If you were in the port industry, remember in 2014, when we were seeking re-election, it was war between us and the Board. So, you can understand that now. Elochukwu was accused of embezzling N10 billion, Kamba was accused of embezzling N10 billion, they are still computing how many billions I have embezzled.
“So, we give them time to do all those ones but it will fizzle out because people like us, we spent our money and time for ANLCA, some people might be eating from ANLCA. Those who eat will expect that you are eating bigger”.
He however pledged to help ANLCA to take care of the customs brokers in the West Africa sub-region which IFCBA had already ceded adding that behind the scene, he would work with the new President.
The former ANLCA boss therefore called on members of the association to “Liaise with the new executive, even if they stumble and fall, they will find their feet, Rome was not built in a day, you can’t expect a man who is not experience in certain matter to just get up and do it but I know he has the capacity to do that”.
He added that the democratic dispensation ongoing in ANLCA which according to him had never been seen before was what he considered his greatest achievement even as he urged them to sustain it.
On his inability to fulfill his promise to get government pay one percent commission to licensed agents from the total revenue collected annually by the Nigeria Customs Service, he said,” What we are saying is that we needed commission to be paid for the job we are doing. All those things that have to do with government, your intention might be good, the starting point may be hot because it takes a long time for government to do computation.
“Now that we have started the agitation, it will continue until one day government will get up and say this people are saying what is right because that is the only way the government can increase its revenue. We are still talking about it, if it didn’t happen in my time; it can happen during this tenure or in another tenure. Like I said, ANLCA is still an ongoing project”.
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