ANLCA Seeks Peace as Transport Minister Intervene to Settle Five-year Dispute

Gilbert Ekugbe 

The Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) have stated that it is open to any fresh move aimed at settling the crisis that had disrupted the association’s operations for the past five years.

This is as the Minister of Transportation, Mu’ azu Sambo has summoned all parties and players in the ANLCA crisis for a meeting in Abuja today.

Addressing a press conference in Lagos, three of the Board of Trustees (BOT) members, Chief Earnest Elochukwu, a former President of ANLCA, Chief Dennis Okafor, and Mr Dayo Azeez, said the association is demanding for peace based on justice, equity and fair play adding that ANLCA is ready to shift grounds only if the mediator, Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) is able to come clean.

Elochukwu however, alleged that CRFFN’s actions in the ANLCA crisis was fraudulent, a travesty of justice and unacceptable.

“Our demand is that we want peace in ANLCA, but peace based on justice, equity and fair play. We are ready to shift grounds, but only in a situation when the mediator comes clean. When an injustice is done and being perpetuated and reinforced, will it bring about any peace? If you are trying to mediate, you have to hear from both sides and as regard the CRFFN Board, we do not know yet what it is all about, but eventually after the meeting with the Minister of Transportation would be a pathway to achieving peace in ANLCA, we have no doubt than to key into and work from there, so for anyone to say we agreed and backed out is a lie because we were not consulted,” Elochukwu said.

“There should be justice to the approach in process of mediation, because we want ANLCA to survive, because our association provides the platform for many stakeholders to benefit from and we have always survived,” he averred.

He further stated that whatever must be done to bring sanity to the association must be done in line with the constitution of ANLCA, saying that the association was established mainly to create value for its members and the country at large.

The BOT members also alleged that the Acting President of the association, Dr Kayode Farinto, last week held a closed door NEC meeting without consent of the board where the exco decided to extend their tenure by three months.

Also speaking, a member of the BOT, Mr Dayo Azeez, said that he was comfortable with the arrangements of CRFFN until he realized that the Council was biased.