… Reels out his track record of service in ANLCA
The immediate past Sole Administrator of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA and Board of Trustees, BoT hopeful, Otunba Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukaila has urged members of the association who will be voting at the forthcoming Annual General Meeting, AGM to elect members of the association’s Board of Trustees, BoT, to vote in people with track record of service.
Mukaila who made this appeal during an interaction with the media in Lagos on Thursday stated that for ANLCA to get it right this time around, members should be meticulous in their choice of who gets their votes in order to sustain the peace and tranquility that is. gradually coming back to the association after years of crisis.
He said, “You must vote for people that have track record. I have observed that most times, we run into trouble in ANLCA when people come from nowhere and get into positions and then, start learning on the job and they are susceptible to a lot of manipulations because they really don’t know the ethics, the norms and the tradition of this association.
“So, in a very simple term, I would want to see people with track record. Track record does not really begin and end within the association itself, if a private business man, as a member of ANLCA, you are coming onboard, people should be able to trace you, where you are coming from, who you are, your pedigree, your achievements and what you are bringing to the association. You don’t just come from nowhere and sit on the Board of ANLCA. What have you contributed?
“So, I would want to see people with proven track record that can share the same vision with me, so that together, we can drive ANLCA, redefine the relationship between the Board and the Executive because I just felt that borderline is the issue with ANLCA.”
On why he believed that he had the track record of service to be entrusted with the BoT slot in ANLCA, he said, “I have a track record of service. I want to say I have seen it all in ANLCA since when I started and I believe more than ever before that ANLCA needs my presence in this Board and I am so confident that ANLCA members need my service. ANLCA Board needs to innovate, you can’t continue to do the same set of things with the same parameters and expect to get a different result.
“I have served ANLCA meritoriously, I have not been found wanting in whatever form. Besides that, as I said earlier, I want to see people that are ready to innovate. When I came into the management level of ANLCA in late 2009, I came into ANLCA that does not have a register of membership. When it is time for meeting at Tincan, people will go there, when it is time for election at MM, the same set of people that finished voting at Tincan will hire molue (bus) and go to vote at MM and it became so cantankerous that many time ANLCA wants to have an election, there has to be a gunshot.
“We lost a guy at Tincan, we used to call him AK Ejo from Ikorodu because of election. Obicee Okonkwo’s head was broken because of election. There was no clear definition of who is a member of any chapter.
“So, we were able to look at that critically when I served in Apapa as an interim Secretary and then, we redefined that. I told my team that we need to redefine how we will be having our elections, if you want to be a member of ANLCA, you must decide on which chapter you are to be identified by. I opened a fresh register and introduced biometric Identify Card. Then, you come into ANLCA with a dedicated personal number and that number remains with you through your lifespan as you move through ANLCA. That brought a lot of sanity because once your name is listed as a member of Apapa, you restrict your choice of determination of who governs at chapter level to Apapa.
“I am a member of Apapa chapter, if anything is going on in Tincan, even if I have any interest, I cannot cast my vote there. That brought a lot of sanity and reduced the influence of the godfathers because when I came into ANLCA, there are godfathers that decide who goes where across board.
“Silently too, we were able to restrict all the big guns to a particular chapter so that the people who want to vote at Apapa know who their leaders at Apapa are. The people at Tincan know who has decided to be a member, even though they are big guns, at Tincan. That reduced that cross-carpeting and this big man dictating things in Apapa and the same man is dictating who goes at Airport, who goes at Tincan.
“So, I intend to redefine the same relationship so that we can have peace, unity and decorum that is prevailing in ANLCA right now.”
Photo: Otunba Abdulazeez Babatunde, immediate past Sole Administrator and ANLCA BoT candidate (middle, front row) and Hajia Bola Muse, National Treasurer, ANLCA in a group photograph with supporters of Mukaila after interaction with the media Thursday.
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