…As Block says he’s not evading arrest
The President, National Council of Managing Directors of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero has denied his alleged arrest by the Police over the letter which was allegedly written from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) stopping the collection of the Practitioners’ Operating Fees of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
A freight forwarder who did not want his name in print had on Tuesday told newsmen that Mr. Amiwero had been arrested on Sunday and taken to the Police Headquarters at Abuja over issues surrounding the said SGF’s letter adding that the Police had been looking for him (Amiwero) for a while without success only to get hold of him last Sunday and whisked him away.
The source further alleged that his deputy, Mr. Uchu block had went into hiding so as to avoid being arrested by men from the Police Headquarters.
But in a telephone interview with Primetime Reporters on Wednesday, Amiwero query the rationale behind the said arrest saying that people should disregard the antics of those he described as illiterate people who want to hide under the cover of the dissolved Governing Council of the CRFFN to collect illegal money at the ports.
According to him,” How can you say that they arrest me for SGF’s letter? That letter na fake? Is it fake? I have been in Abuja for the past two months; I am with the government here trying to see how we can assist the government. I saw all of them in Abuja here looking for the illegal money they will collect from the dissolved council where you have the illiterate people looking for illegal money they will collect.
“I am saying that nothing of such happened, arrest me for what? Let us not forget that Secretary to the Government of the Federation is the highest organ in the country and they have investigated that letter and even the Ministry of Transport knew that the letter is okay. They should query the Secretary to the Government of the Federation or they should query the President, that letter has been written, nobody can query the letter and it has stopped them. Let them go and start collecting the thing”.
He disclosed that there was a court case as well as a court judgment which pronounced that there was no council for now until a new council is reconstituted and that the federal government’s letter only reinforced the proclamation of the court adding that that was what it is.
“Associations are not members of the council, I am a licensed customs agent and you cannot come to the port and collect money when there is no law that says you should collect any money. I am not a freight forwarder for now, we took the council to court and there is a current court judgment that said there is no council. I don’t meet with them, I cannot be in court and be a member of the council and I won them in the lower court, won them in the higher court, in the court of appeal and the recent court judgment is saying that the council has been dissolved since the 12th of November, 2012. So, which Council do you have?”
On his part, the Deputy President of NCMDLCA, Mr. Uchu Block described his alleged hiding from the Police in order to evade arrest as an unfounded lie saying that a petition had been written against him over the SGF’s letter to the Commissioner of Police in-charge of the Ports who invited him and that he had gone to answer all the questions put to him even as he said that the outcome of the investigation at that level was being awaited.
He said,” Last Thursday, men from the IG (Inspector-General)’s office invited me to the CP (Commissioner of Police)’s office in Lagos, I went there, they told me they were not there, that they had left that place for ANLCA Secretariat. They told me they were with the President of ANLCA and his deputy and that I should come there. I rushed down there only to found out that they were not there, they were at the Airport with the Chairman of ANLCA and his Vice at the airport chapter.
“I told them that why I came to the ANLCA Secretariat was that that was the office of the president. They pleaded with me that I should come; in fact they insisted that they will pay my fare to that place but all the same I had to go. I had to go there and when I got there, I met two gentlemen from the IG’s office; they took my statement and said they will call me whenever they needed me. How will I be hiding?”
He informed that as at the time he was speaking, that he was at his office (address withheld by Primetime Reporters) at Apapa and would be available in case this medium decided to check on him to verify his claims.
