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Eyewitness Reporter

For over three years now, the Association of Nigerian  Licenced Customs Agents(ANLCA) has been embroiled in a senseless war of attrition.

A needless war that is being fuelled by greed, selfishness, avariciousness, and self-preservation.

An intractable war that has had an incalculable toll and dealt unimaginable damage to the corporate image of the supposedly oldest and most influential freight forwarding group in Nigeria.

A war that has greatly eroded the public goodwill, confidence, and acceptability of the association.

In the course of the imbroglio, ANLCA has shrunk in influence, fame, quality and status.

The association has flittered away its reputation which it had built over 67 years of its existence on the altar of egocentric squabbles.

During this mindless fight for the soul of the association, ANLCA has lost the respect, clout, public sympathy and empathy that have made it the once preferred freight forwarding group.

As a matter of fact, the endless war that has polarised and factionalised the association has rendered the once vibrant, articulate, respected and most sought after group weak, ineffective, lame, broken, decapitated and degraded.

But the loss of ANLCA is the gain of NAGAFF.

All these years when the gladiators in ANLCA are busy clawing at one another’s throats, tearing themselves apart, trampling upon their hapless members who they are supposed to protect, the leadership of the  National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF)has been busy consolidating and building the association into a formidable, virile and a force to be reckoned with in the industry.

NAGAFF,  founded and driven by Dr Boniface Aniebonam, a sagacious, audacious, shrewd, visionary, intelligent mobiliser and administrator, has cashed in on the prostrate ANLCA to become the emerging octopus in the freight forwarding industry.

NAGAFF, a child of necessity founded 22 years ago, has scooped and leveraged on all the goodwill, fame, clout, respect, and public acceptability that the ANLCA has unwittingly flittered away.

Aniebonam has been able to build  NAGAFF into a stronger,  respectable,  acceptable and visionary brand which has completely taken the initiatives away from the hapless, clueless, weakened and distabilised ANLCA whose hitherto vibrancy has been blunt by years of internal wrangling.

Little wonder the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) last week appointed Aniebonam, popularly referred to as Founder, as its ambassador in the freight forwarding industry.

The position confers Aniebonam the privilege of representing and working with the NDLEA in its propagation of anti-drug crusade among freight forwarders.

To us, the President of ANLCA, whose association is the oldest and supposedly most influential,  should have been best suited for this coveted position.

But when the association has been rendered prostate and clueless due to years of ego war, it was not a surprise that Aniebonam,  the Founder and Pathfinder of  NAGAFF, the emerging force in the freight forwarding industry, will readily be the preferred recipient.

As nature abhors a vacuum, NAGAFF has continued to take the initiatives to fill the gap created by the slumbering and fumbling ANLCA.

It was NAGAFF that took the initiative of fighting the excessiveness of the service providers to protect the hapless freight forwarders from the extortionist tendencies of these capitalists.

Aptly dubbed NAGAFF 100 percent compliance team, the anti-corruption arm of NAGAFF, the association has been able to checkmate most of the excesses of the service providers.

An attempt by ANLCA to replicate this noble initiative by NAGAFF expectedly fizzled out like candlelight in the wind due to lack of purpose.

Not only that, NAGAFF recently hosted Barrister Hassan Bello, the retired and highly celebrated Executive Secretary of Nigerian Shippers’ Council, to a lavish reception meant to honour him for his selfless service to the industry during his eight-year tenure.

These and many more initiatives taken by NAGAFF have made the association the most active and proactive freight forwarding group in the industry.

Unfortunately, all this while when NAGAFF was building, rebranding and consolidating, ANLCA, a supposedly oldest freight forwarding group, was gradually receding in importance, fame, status and influence as its supposed leaders who are expected to build the association are busy destroying the legacy left by its founding fathers in their inordinate ambition to appropriate the spoils of office to themselves.

Like most industry stakeholders who are already tired and irritated by the endless war in ANLCA, we shall no longer advise the gladiators to sheath their swords because such admonition has not been heeded in the past.

Rather than heed the warnings and advice of concerned stakeholders, the gladiators seemed more determined as they continued to get more incensed and enraged with one another, appearing hell-bent on destroying the great legacy they inherited from the founding fathers.

However,  the ANLCA warlords should realise that every jab they throw at one another will only make NAGAFF stronger, more influential, more popular and prosperous until it finally drowns the war-torn association in its own act of foolery.

But if the ANLCA gladiators could engage themselves in self- retrospect that their act is capable of destroying the great association that was once the envy of other rival associations and end this factional war, maybe, just maybe, ANLCA  could manage to salvage and recover some of the gains it has conceded to NAGAFF.