The Chartered institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Nigeria will hold the 2018 edition of her national conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos, Nigeria.
The event which holds at the Golden Tulip Hotels, Amuwo-Odofin, Festac Town, Lagos between the 26th and 27th October, 2018 would starts at 9.30 am each day with the theme, “Trucks in Freight Logistics: Issues in Nigeria’s Economic Development”.
Speaking on the theme of the event, the National Executive Director of CILT Nigeria, Mr. Paul Ndibe disclosed that the choice of the theme by the Council of the Institute was taken in order to draw attention again to the issue of trucks and physical distribution system in Nigeria adding that it would also help stakeholders to focus on the need for appropriate regulation.
Ndibe noted that of all the sectors of the economy, it was the transport sector that was heavily unregulated saying that a critical look at the distribution system in Nigeria transport wise would show that the contribution of rail, aviation as well as the inland waterways sectors was small in terms of physical distribution.
“So, the attention is only drawn essentially to the road and when you mention the road, it is just the trucks. So, the essence like I said earlier is to draw attention to it so that all stakeholders can come and look at the issue and then we can be on the same page and government will be able to may be take a cue from that and look at it also from the perspective of the professionals so that we might be able to really have something new on the road sector”, he said.
He pointed out that the conference is open to all stakeholders hence the reason it was publicized in the newspapers even as he explained that it was not restricted to the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport members but for the entire populace.
On the choice of speakers for the conference, he stated,” We have given invitations to the speakers but we are expecting their confirmation. So, it might not be appropriate to mention them while we are still expecting their confirmation but they are authorities in the sector and also in the policy sector. So, there will be a speaker on the policy sector, there will be also a speaker on the operating sector and then we are also looking at one of the truck manufacturers to give us a perspective on the type of trucks specifically for our roads and why Nigeria should look at a particular brand or two or three brands and concentrate on those brands and be able to develop the capacity for their maintenance. Because if you concentrate on such policy, the advantage is that they are more likely to have credit lines, they are more likely to have even the spare parts in order to repair the ones that are running.
“But if it is an open architecture, it can be from anywhere, it can be from any brand, you may have problem of manning effectiveness in terms of maintenance. You may have also problem of consolidating your supply line in terms of the trucks themselves, you may also have a problem of spare parts. So, a truck manufacturing company will be there to talk to us on what they are doing currently and share their knowledge with others”.
The National Executive Director further explained that the event which would hold for two days would witness the national conference and induction of some of the members of the institute that had gained elevation in their membership status on the first day while the second day would witness the AGM and national council election.
According to him,” For every election year, because the constitution I would say and then the bye-law allows for a president to run for two terms of two years each but that does not mean that he will not stand for election. So, for any election year, if you have served out your terms, you are not going to stand for election but even if you have stayed for one tenure and want to go for another term, that does not mean that you may not have a challenger but it depends on the number of persons that will seek to serve”.
On the choice of Lagos as the host for this year’s event, he added, Let me start by informing you that the last conference that was held in Lagos was in 2015, that of 2016 was in Abuja, 2017 was Port-Harcourt and then we are returning to Lagos in 2018. Despite every other criterion, Lagos is where we have the largest concentration of corporate members of the Institute. So, if you move it say to Kano, the implication is that a lot of members will have to pay their way to Kano and also making provisions for hotel accommodations. If you look at the number of people that will be affected by that and then the number of people that will be affected if it is held in Lagos, a lot of members will be saved the problem of moving from one location to the other.
“So, since they are all members and it is a professional body, we looked at that and give consideration to where we have largest number of people so that at least in every four years or thereabout, we could be able to hold it here so it could be less inconveniencing”.
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