The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) has said that it will soon start enforcement on minimum standard required for one to engage in the practice freight forwarding in Nigeria.
The Registrar of CRFFN, Barr. Samuel Nwakohu who made this disclosure in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos recalled that sometime last year and early this year, the Council made publications pegging the deadline for all the practicing freight forwarders to acquire the minimum certification by 2021 adding that there was no going back on the deadline.
According to him, “If you have not acquired that minimum standard, you cannot continue to practice freight forwarding, we will deregister you. So, that is where we are.
“Part of the problem is that there are quite a number of people who cannot read or write that claim to be freight forwarders. There are so many hooligans who claim to be freight forwarders and do not know anything about freight forwarding. They are the first people to come out and talk when they have the opportunity, they are the first people to come to meet people like you who publish things and they say things that are not verifiable. That is part of the problem, until we flush these people out of this business, we will continue to have this kind of problems.”
Nwakohu pointed out that the Council spent its scarce resources publishing and advising practitioners to register with any of the accredited Universities within the geographical zone where they reside to be trained and certified but regretted that people were paying deaf ears to it.
“On the 18th of this month, we will be making a publication, you will see all the people who are registered, all the people who have been trained and we will be telling the public these are the people you have to deal with, that is enforcement. We will pass the information to NPA and the Shippers’ Council that these are the people you are to deal with, that these are registered freight forwarders”, he added.
On the allegation in some publications that no individual or organization has benefitted from the capacity building of the CRFFN, the Registrar while describing those making the allegation as being mischievous said that “the top people in the industry cannot say that, it is those who are under the table that are talking.”
According to him, “Go and ask Aniebonam who is the founder of NAGAFF, he has been trained by CRFFN, he holds a qualification approved by the Council. Go and ask Chief Henry Njoku, a board Chairman of ANLCA, he has been trained by CRFFN, he has a qualification. Very shortly, we are going to publish those who are qualified to practice freight forwarding in Nigeria, before long, you are going to see that in the papers. So, anybody who is not trained will see that he will see himself to blame not for want of provisions that the CRFFN has made but people has refused to go and learn.
“If people like Aniebonam, people like Henry Njoku will go to the classrooms and sit down, people like Prince Shittu, Shittu was number one to pay for this course, we have many of them, the former CRFFN Governing Council Chairman, Aare Hakeem Olanrewaju was trained by CRFFN, qualified, has a certificate. Tijani has been trained and has qualification. We ran this training across the country, we are still running training even in this Covid, we are running Webinar, the first one has taken place, the next one is coming on 12th August, 2020.
“So, we have been doing trainings. Now, we have accredited institutions all over the country – UNILAG is accredited, UNN is accredited, Benue State –North Central, Zaria, Sokoto, all these accreditations are not for fun, they are outlets to enable anybody who is willing to avail himself or herself of the qualifications to go there. We make sure that there is no geopolitical zone that doesn’t have an accredited institution and if you think you don’t have, this Webinar that we have just started conducting are free of charge.
If you still want to be uneducated, that is your business and the evidence is global because when we run these Webinars, FIATA is invited. The last one we ran, people joined us from Canada, people joined from UK, from the US, from South Africa and from other places that I don’t know but these are the places that I know and people have been sending commendations that this is very educating. The Chairman of the Council was there, some legislators were there.
“So, I don’t know what the person means, as far as I am concerned, we are on course.”
Photo: The CRFFN Registrar/ CEO, Barr. Samuel Nwakohu.
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