The Taiwo Mustapha’s faction of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has threatened to wield the big stick against Chief Peter Obi for belonging to the international Freight Forwarders Association (IFFA) which they consider to be a parallel freight forwarding association to ANLCA.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos on the wake of the takeover of the ANLCA BOT Chairmanship position by Alhaji Taiwo Mustapha, a member of the faction, Mr. Dayo David Azeez alleged that some people who claimed to be ANLCA members equally belonged to parallel organizations that are rivaling ANLCA adding that Chief peter Obi who is also a member of ANLCA BOT is also the Chairman of the IFFA BOT hence his intent to scatter ANLCA with his cohorts.
Azeez pointed out that it was not allowed for members to possess membership of two opposing freight forwarding associations at the same time arguing that one cannot be a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and at the same time be a member of ANAN.
“So, there are some people playing some gimmicks just to destabilize ANLCA but those of us that has been in this system for a longer time, we want to make sure that ANLCA moves forward”, he said.
On his part, the Secretary of the faction, Chief Taiye Oyeniyi said,” This is the Minute of Monday, 11th November, 2017, I will just read a paragraph to you, ‘IFFA as parallel association to ANLCA: This matter was deliberated upon by the Board and it was agreed that IFFA is a registered parallel freight forwarding association like ANLCA and also establishing some chapters in some of the customs command. In this regard, the issue of dual membership of ANLCA/IFFA was discussed, while Chief Peter Obi was specifically mentioned as having dual membership of both. Therefore, Chief Peter Obi was put on notice to defend himself whenever the matter comes up in the NEC’ and the NEC resolved that the matter should be referred to the Board.
“So, what I will do specifically is to get to my computer to bring out some minutes. You know, if you don’t have fact, I can go on to convince you, I can go on and tell lies to you but anything that you put pen on paper, don’t tell lies. So, without trying to pre-empt the Chairman because he has not told you, we have resolved to take up that area. You cannot be in the BOT of IFFA and you want to be a member of ANLCA. We have told Obi that he must relinquish one for the other which he has promised to do.
“If you can ask him, he promised in one of our meetings that he will put up a letter of resignation and we gave him 90 days to resign and publish same in the national dailies but up till today, he has not done that. So, we believe that he is one of us, he doesn’t need to go, we have some rules you can follow as a Board members”.
Also speaking, the factional Chairman of ANLCA BOT, Alhaji Taiwo Mustapha recalled that in one of his discussions with a member of IFFA who was also a member of ANLCA, at their National Executive Committee (NECOM) election which held recently in Enugu, he had asked that IFFA member to return to ANLCA but the IFFA member responded that he would come back to ANLCA only if Chief Emenike Nwokeoji did not win the President of ANLCA.
In his words,” If Emenike had won that election, the plan was that all of them, I wouldn’t know who and who he was calling all of them, were going to IFFA. So, that reason was for them, Emenike actually losing the election and Tony Iju wining, all of you will come back but coming back does not mean to come and destabilize ANLCA”.
In his reaction, Chief Peter Obi queried the membership status of those who were accusing him of dual membership in ANLCA adding that he can only attest to Chief Taiye Oyeniyi and Mr. Dayo Azeez as members of ANLCA but question the membership status of Alhaji Mustapha in ANLCA.
He challenged the trio to cite the provision in ANLCA’s constitution that forbids its members from belonging to any other freight forwarding association even as he recalled that he had been the BOT Chairman of IFFA long before his appointment as a member of ANLCA BOT based on merit and not by election.
Obi while pointing out that even as the BOT Chairman of IFFA, he had served out his initial six years as ANLCA BOT member and this issue did not come up wondering why the matter became an issue now.
According to him,” This is my second term in the Board of ANLCA, the first six years have gone and nothing like that came up and I have been the Board Chairman of IFFA from inception, since 2007 when it was registered, why should it come up now? And which provision in our constitution does it violate? Is that how things are done in Nigeria? Where was that same Board when I served in the ANLCA Board in the first six years?
“Ask Mustapha who he is in ANLCA, he was just imported from nowhere by the Shittu led administration to come into the Board, which is allowed, you can appoint anybody to come and serve in the Board. He has not held any position in the association, he has not worked in any committee, there is nowhere he had experience. What does he know about ANLCA?”
Asked why he was referring to Alhaji Mustaphap as “imported” when it was obvious that the same Mustapha served as Coordinator of the ANLCA BOT for nine months, he said,” What happened was that there was a problem then, we now decided then that let a new comer who we thought then was a neutral person to be the coordinator for us to organize ourselves to allow voting to take place. Remember, when he was appointed the coordinator, Shittu was the President, so we don’t have any bad mind about it. But now, because the election went the way it went and Tony Iju won the election and being somebody that they don’t want, if it had gone the other way, there wouldn’t be all these problems, but Tony Iju now won, this is the problem. What is happening in ANLCA is simply politics but I am above that”.
On whether they planned to leave ANLCA for IFFA had Emenike Nwokeoji won the election, he replied,” I am hearing it for the first time, anybody can forge anything and tell you but I am hearing it from you. I have not heard anything about it and nobody has ever discussed this kind of thing with me. There was nothing like that.
“This ANLCA has been there all the while in tandem with all other associations, we have other associations going their own way. That was why I said, let the person who is giving you this information point out a section of our constitution that my being a member of IFFA and at the same time being a member of Board of Trustees of ANLCA violates. You cannot be talking like an animal, we are human beings and you are talking to human beings who will ask you questions”.
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