The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Bomarah Group, Hajia Bola Muse has said that she’s considering proposing some rebates for women in the ongoing constitution amendment by the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, ANLCA.
The said rebates should come in form of slashing the cost of nomination forms and the expression of interest forms for women during elections both at the national and chapter levels and the reservation of some percentage of contestable positions in the association for women.
MUSE who disclosed this in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos at the weekend said that she had earlier on made a case for the association to slash the cost of nomination forms and expression of interest forms for women in ANLCA by at least 50 percent to encourage them to actively participate in the decision making process of the association but did not succeed.
According to her, “I raised it when election was coming up and I told the former President, Tony Iju that I have a lot of women that can contest, some of them, their licenses have not matured, they have the money but is there any way we can slash the price of the forms for them at least by 50 percent? He asked me, in our profession, is there a woman in our profession? All of us are men, there’s no woman in the profession.
“He further asked if I am now bringing gender coloration to the profession, that means I am being biased. Talking about your own, Hajia Bola Muse, how much did you buy your form, did you get rebate when you were buying your form? So, why does it have to come now?
“Maybe now that we are trying to make an amendment to our constitution, there’s a committee sitting on the amendment of the constitution, maybe I can propose that to them and let’s see if they can grant it. But they are insisting that all of us are men, we go to the field together, you clear, I clear, so why are you bringing gender issue here?”
Asked if there was a provision in the ANLCA constitution that referred all members of the association as being men, she said, “It did not say that but it referred to all of us as professionals.”
Noting that ANLCA was formed in the year 1954, Muse who is also the National Treasurer of ANLCA regretted that hardly would one see any woman hold any elective position in the association until she decided to give it a shot.
She said, “Until I came onboard and you can see, before, the annoyance is that on the high table, it’s all men that you will see because they are the only people elected to the executive positions. If you notice, you will see that I am the only woman that is always in their midst. So, that is where we are going which I believe we will soon reach there because the men believed that a woman should be at the back. Before now, the idea is that women should be in the kitchen.
“But now, the women are coming up to take their rightful place in the midst of men. Take me for example, all my staff are men and we have been together in the last 30 years. So, if I can manage their affairs, these are men that have wives and children at home but I know them more than their wives at home. Women are there to manage things, we are multi-tasking and we have the power and I believe the earlier the better for men to give the women space so that the world will be easier for everyone to operate in.”
On why there were fewer number of women elected into the executive positions in the just concluded chapter elections of the association, she said, “You see, ANLCA is a body which is not formed by one person and it has a constitution. Its membership is by license. Why I am not worried is because we have many women but they don’t have license and before you can belong to ANLCA, you must be a license owner. If you don’t have a license, nobody is talking to you and even if they are talking to you, they are talking to you based on friendship.
“But when it comes to election, holding executive position, it has to do with your license with certain number of years in operation. If it’s not active for at least five years, you cannot participate.
“So, all we are doing is to encourage our women, no matter what, go and procure a license because your license is key to the association. We know that procuring a license is not one naira, that’s why when you work, you save. I got my license 30 years ago at the rate of N250,000. Today, getting a license is in the neighborhood of N2.5 million to N3 million depending on who you approach.
“But when you know what you are doing, you can get the license and what we are doing now is to encourage the women to come together as a body to get a license if they can’t get it individually. Maybe like three to five people so that when they come together, it becomes easier for them to get the license.”
On why those of them who are well to do would not help especially women who had been identified as working hard to procure a license, she said, “We do, we have some people like Prince Olayiwola Shittu who have procured licenses for a lot of people.”
“I am always happy any time a woman come up to contest election in ANLCA. I was even happy this time around that we have a lot of women that came into executive positions in the last chapter elections in ANLCA. Look at Tincan, they have three or four women in their executive, which is okay. That is four to three, that is encouraging. KLT has, I think one woman and so in many other chapters. So, we are coming up, and I believe we will get there”, she concluded.
Photo: Hajia Bola Muse, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Bomarah Group.
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