The Sole Administrator of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Apapa chapter, Mr. Ojo Peter Akintoye has accused the journalists covering the Nigerian maritime sector of not doing enough in reporting the challenges faced by stakeholders in the sector.
Akintoye who made this accusation in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos recently accused the maritime journalists of bias since they could not report the multiple agencies of the government particularly the Nigeria Customs Service which mounts checkpoints less than 200 metres away from the ports and several letters from the Nigeria Police Force stopping release of cargo from the ports.
While admitting that the maritime journalists on their own were doing their best, he however was quick to add that their best was not enough even as he posited if the pressure being mounted on government by the stakeholders was backed up with reports from the maritime journalists; the problems bedeviling the sector would have been solved.
In his words,” I put a question to maritime journalists, it seems that you guys are somehow bias in the sense that all of us are on ground, you physically see what happens but I have never seen any journalist report multiple agencies, not more than 200 metres away from the port for the past one year. I have never seen any maritime journalist talk about the alerts of the Nigerian Police Force. Does it mean that you guys are afraid of them or does it mean that you people have been bought over? But I don’t know why you guys are not reporting.
“Nigeria belongs to all of us, what we should understand is that all of us are at the receiving end, whatever the customs and the Police are doing in terms of increasing the cost of legitimate importation into this country, the end users bear the brunt. I am not saying that you are not reporting at all but it is not as expected. You all know in our country, the only language our government listens to is when you pressurize them, when you threaten them with strike, when your voice is being heard. It is not that the government does not know the right thing but they fail to do the right thing, except we force them to do the right thing.
“What I am trying to say is that the pressure the stakeholders are mounting on customs and Police, if there is enough help from the maritime journalists in terms of their reportage, with it, I am telling you that by now, our problems would have been solved. Although you are doing your best but your best is not enough”.
He however disclosed that the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) accompanied by the Vice President of ANLCA, Dr. Kayode Farinto visited the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) over multiple units of the Nigeria Customs Service on Lagos metropolis where they were promised that those units would be withdrawn immediately.
“I am sure that you are aware that about last week or two weeks ago, that the CRFFN with the help of the Vice President of ANLCA, matched to Abuja to see the CGC and told him about the five different units of Task Force, Strike Force, FOU, name them on the metropolis of Lagos not up to 200 metres away from Apapa port, not up to 200 metres away from Tincan and PTML ports. For your information, we have a lighter port in Mile 2 just before the Bridge, this is the place that this people position themselves 24 hours a week, working on shift, one shift will start from morning till night, sand another one will take over from that one till in the morning.
“However, they promised us that the Task Forces should leave the road but they are yet to enforce that because they are still there till this morning, all of them are still there”, he said.
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