Barely 48 hours to the election of the freight forwarding practitioners into the Governing Council of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), has continued to mount pressure on one of its candidates from Kano Airport, Yau Muftahu to withdraw from the race.
This according to the founder of NAGAFF, Dr. Boniface Aniebonam believed would pave way for affirmation of the 15 contestants as duly elected into the Governing Council of CRFFN rather than subjecting the voters to the rigors of election in order to weed out one person.
Aniebonam who made this known at a joint press briefing held in Lagos yesterday by officials of the five accredited freight forwarding associations recalled that the associations came together to agree on a sharing formula for the 15 positions ceded to the freight forwarders by the Act establishing CRFFN to the effect that NAGAFF and ANLCA being the biggest in terms of membership strength and chapter spread across Nigeria take 6 slots each while the NCMDLCA, AREFFN and NAFFAC got 1 slot each.
Recall that while the positions allotted to the freight forwarding associations are 15 in all, the CRFFN Screening Committee cleared 16 contestants for the election meaning that there is going to be election to determine who drops to get the 15 candidates.
However, the NAGAFF founder assured that efforts were on to get Muftahu to do the needful having gotten 3 others from NAGAFF to withdraw their interest in order to accommodate the smaller associations to form an all-inclusive council.
According to him,” Like I told you, the good news was that nobody told us why the election was postponed but government has reversed itself and we appreciate them, we thank them for all they have done. Now, going forward, the timetable tells you about the accreditation tomorrow and then Friday, on Saturday, election proper and some of us become so unruly wherein as you know, that while these discussions and negotiations were going on among the federating associations, NAGAFF had ten members that have duly paid N500,000 each to pick the nomination form, that makes it five million Naira but for peace to reign, having agreed among the five associations, three of the NAGAFF members had to withdraw.
“Remember that the N500,000 is non-refundable and NAGAFF opted to refund them that money except for one of us who for whatever reason remained recalcitrant but that’s alright. If you belong to association, you must abide by the constitution of the association. So, as you all know that it is a member of NAGAFF that chose to be recalcitrant in trying to be part of the team, maybe because the young man entered NAGAFF newly. But be rest assured that the reaction time of NAGAFF is very high. All I am telling you is that we are doing everything possible to see that he has one thing, either to be part of NAGAFF or not to be part of NAGAFF, that we must achieve.
“So, I urge all of us to be very peaceful as we go for this accreditation and then election proper. If the young man we are talking about steps down, then it will be by affirmation on Saturday because the chances that are available are 15 in number and that would have been accordingly taken care of. So, we just hope that this will go safely and then we now move to Abuja for inauguration and then if you go to the Council, you have a lot to do to give ourselves a place in the society”.
“He continued,” This Council election has gone through so many turmoils, this morning, I just received a document that ANLCA in accordance with all engagements has withdrawn its case in court, I have that document with me, those of you who wants to get the document, you can still pick it up from my office this morning that ANLCA has formally withdrawn that case that tend to seek for election and of course issue of POF collection.
”And then for some of our members who for obvious reasons decided to come in as private individuals in the contest of the election, I really want to say that we must understand very simple thing, you cannot contest election in this country if you are not a member of a registered political party and who is the regulator? The regulator is INEC. Now, you come down to our own base, you have CRFFN as a regulator and CRFFN has accredited five associations in which case you have an opportunity to join anyone of them.
“So, the association is the framework for individual operators to stand. I can tell you that 99.9% of practitioners in the industry belong to one association or the other, so if you are not in one of these associations, then you need to take a look at yourself because you have a choice to make among these five associations. So, I will plead the press to see how you can help us by your reportage to the point of this reform”.
He therefore appreciated the Honourable Minister of Transportation, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Registrar of CRFFN, Si, Mike Jukwe and others for working to ensure that the election succeeds.
“I appreciate the Hon. Minister of Transport for his wisdom, whatever intelligence information he has which was later verified, that he reversed himself, we appreciate him. We appreciated the ES of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and of course, our own, Jukwe who has been working round the clock. And I continue to thank Olayiwola Shittu, Tony Iju, Dr. Frank, Festus Ukwu and the rest of them, Agubamah for having that wisdom to reason well and to be able to work together so that we can find a place like others in the society. We cannot continue what is going on”, he said.
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