As preparations for the election of freight forwarders into the Governing Council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) gets underway, the founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has said that contrary to fears in some quarters, there is nothing wrong in President Muhammadu Buhari appointing a Chairman for the Governing Council.
It will be recalled that the Act setting up CRFFN has stipulated that the Chairman of the Council will be elected from the elected freight forwarding practitioners in the Council.
However, speaking to newsmen in Lagos, Dr. Aniebonam averred that since the court of competent jurisdiction in its ruling had said that CRFFN was a government agency that the President appointing a Chairman for the Council was in in order.
In his words,” The Court has made it expressly by a ruling that CRFFN is an agency of the government. Are you in position to direct the government now when the court has ruled? So, Mr. President appointing a Chairman is in order. What is wrong with that? Except to the contrary that CRFFN is not an agency of the government, automatically, Mr. President is going to appoint whoever is the Chairman of the Council, there is no doubt about that. Whoever that person is going to be, I don’t know and we are not in position to dictate for government but what is important to us is that NAGAFF is in the Council and when we are in the Council and whoever is the Chairman of the Council as may be appointed by the President, we will see his output”.
While describing the recent screening of candidates for the governing council election slated for this Friday and subsequent release of the names of successful candidates by the CRFFN Screening Committee as successful, he however pointed out that the guidelines for the election were specific on what aspirants must do failure of which must attract disqualification.
“So, it is not about competency or whoever you are, it is not important. There are procedures to be followed and if the procedures are not complied with, you will be disqualified and accordingly they were disqualified. It is not a question of whether I am satisfied or not, it doesn’t add, it doesn’t remove. The CRFFN is simply doing their job and you don’t change that, if you are aggrieved, you go to court”, he said.
On the decision of the freight forwarding association to adopt sharing formula rather than open election as procedure for this election, Aniebonam who is also the National Chairman of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) said,” We all know why we have to adopt that amicable way of resolving matters that have to do with inclusive members of the Board. The experience of the maiden election is obvious and it is one of the major reasons why CRFFN has not done so well. And having only members of one association, we all know doesn’t add value to it because, first you need to understand the mischief that the CRFFN was established to cure.
“So, at a time the maiden election came up with members of only one association, it has not solved the problem the Council was meant to solve. So, after the first and second council, within the period under review, five associations were registered having been profiled by the CRFFN as meriting consideration. So, good thinking tells you that for us to achieve the objective of the Council, we should have inclusive members of the Council.
“This idea of individual candidate makes nonsense of the Council, it shows that something is wrong with Council, that the Council still needed to be given a touch because the Council is a regulator, the Council is to control. You don’t need anybody to tell you that the five registered associations, if you are a practitioner, you must belong to one of them to become a member of the Council. People can go ahead and say whatever they want to say, I was one of those that drafted the Council, so, I know what it entails. These people who claim to derive their power from constitution of the Federal Republic under section 40, yes, it is there but it is neither here nor there at this point in time because CRFFN is a regulatory agency. We are not begging you to be member of the Council, if you refuse to belong or register with the Council, you are a misnomer, you are a meddlesome interloper.
“And so, for you to be a member of the Council, you must belong to one of the associations and now, these associations have come together, looking at the fifteen chances given to them, they proratered it according to their strength, so, any person coming as individual to contest, no, that is not the essence of the Council. Nobody is trampling on your right or liberty to freely associate but not to the extent of getting to the Council. That individual must be a registered member of association because association is a platform for the administrative convenient of the Council”.
Asked to speak on he was able to get the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) to key into the sharing formula which it initially seemed not to be comfortable with, he said,” Of course, democratically, you should understand that four against one, this is democracy, if they don’t key in, they can’t stop the process. So, we are in a democratic government, democracy is about rule of law”.
He refuted a statement credited to the Registrar of CRFFN, Sir Mike Jukwe as saying that the Council was not comfortable with the sharing formula as proposed by the associations saying that,” The Council Registrar never said so. What he was simply saying is that the five accredited associations have met by themselves, the Council belong to them and they said that for ease of doing this election, so many reasons came in in terms of security of state, transportation, logistics, accommodation and all that, they came together and agreed, of course, they know themselves, it is not the Council that told them to do so”.
Reminded that the sharing formula was not covered by the Act establishing the CRFFN, he retorted,” Nobody has told you that the sharing formula was not covered by the Act. The Act did not say anything and if the Act did not say anything, why do you impute it? And see, laws are made for man not man for the law. I must also tell you that the Council has the powers of making regulations”.
He however attested to the fact that the CRFFN Registrar, Jukwe had done well so far in the preparations for the election and was still on course adding that,” Some of these hiccups you are talking about is normal, they are bound to occur and somebody who is screened out will always find something to say. But the good news is that the court is there, if you feel aggrieved, you go to court. That is how we will improve our democracy”.
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