Freight Monitor
NAGAFF floors ANLCA in CRFFN elections
–—-wins 8 seats out of 15
—-ANLCA grabs 5
Eyewitness reporter
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders(NAGAFF) has swept the elections into the governing board of the Council for the Regulations of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
In the elections conducted Wednesday at the various elections centres in Lagos for the Western zone, in Port Harcourt for Eastern Zone, and Abuja for Northern Zone, NAGAFF got eight slots, ANLCA five slots, AREFF one slot while the remaining one slot was won by Increase Uche, an Independent candidate and the former National President of NAGAFF.
According to the summary of the results of the election released by the CRFFN, Princess Chi Eze, Northern Zone, Airport/Land Border NAGAFF scored 224 votes, Ibrahim Tanko Western Zone, Apapa Port, NAGAFF scored 179 votes, Ndubuisi Uzoegbo, Western Zone, Apapa Port, NAGAFF scored 147 votes while Awogbemi Timothy Western Zone, Airport/Land Border NAGAFF, scored 145 votes.
Others are Increase Uche, Eastern Zone, Airport/Land Border NAGAFF/INDEPENDENT candidate, scored 121 votes, Chukwunonso Ejikeme Western Zone, Airport/Land Border, NAGAFF scored 120 votes, Tochukwu Ezisi, Western Zone, Apapa Port, NAGAFF scored 110 votes, Ekemezie Ifeanyi, Western Zone, Apapa Port, NAGAFF scored 72 votes.
WINNERS OF YEAR 2022 CRFFN BOARD ELECTION
FIFTEEN (15) GOVERNING COUNCIL BOARD MEMBERS
| S/N | NAMES | CATCHMENT AREAS | ASSOCIATION | NUMBER OF VOTES |
| 1. | Princess Chi Eze | Northern Zone, Airport/Land Border | NAGAFF | 224 VOTES |
| 2. | Ibrahim Tanko | Western Zone, Apapa Port | NAGAFF | 179 VOTES |
| 3. | Ndubuisi Uzoegbo | Western Zone, Apapa Port | NAGAFF | 147 VOTES |
| 4. | Awogbemi Timothy | Western Zone, Airport/Land Border | NAGAFF | 145 VOTES |
| 5. | Increase Uche | Eastern Zone, Airport/Land Border | NAGAFF/INDEPENDENT | 121 VOTES |
| 6. | Chukwunonso Ejikeme Western Zone, Airport/Land Border | NAGAFF | 120 VOTES | |
| 7. | Tochukwu Ezisi | Western Zone, Apapa Port | NAGAFF | 110 VOTES |
| 8. | Ekemezie Ifeanyi | Western Zone, Apapa Port | NAGAFF | 72 VOTES |
| 9. | Farinto Collins Kayode | Western Zone, Apapa Port | ANLCA | 72 VOTES |
| 10. | Muftahu Ya’u | Northern Zone, Airport/Land Border | NAGAFF | 91 VOTES |
| 11. | Henry Njoku | Eastern Zone, Onne Port | ANLCA | 63 VOTES |
| 12. | Bala Rabiu Lawan | Eastern Zone, Onne Port | AREFF | 54 VOTES |
| 13. | Isikaku Ifeanyi Goddy | Easter Zone, Onne Port | ANLCA | 52 VOTES |
| 14. | Kinsley O. Offor | Eastern Zone, Onne Port | ANLCA | 44 VOTES |
| 15. | Christopher C. Okafor | Eastern Zone, Onne Port | ANLCA | 26 VOTES |
CRFFN ELECTION SLOTS SUMMARY
| S/N | NAMES OF ASSOCIATION | SLOTS IN THE COUNCIL |
| 1. | NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENT APPROVED FREIGHT FORWARDERS (NAGAFF) | 8 SLOTS |
| 2. | ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN LICENSED CUSTOMS AGENTS (ANLCA) | 5 SLOTS |
| 3. | ASSOCIATION OF REGISTERED FREIGHT FORWARDERS (AREFF) | 1 SLOT |
| 3. | NAGAFF/INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES | 1 SLOT |
| TOTAL | 15 WINNERS | |
Farinto Collins Kayode , Western Zone, Apapa Port ANLCA, scored 72 votes, Muftahu Ya’u , Northern Zone, Airport/Land Border, NAGAFF scored 91 votes, Henry Njoku Eastern Zone, Onne Port, ANLCA scored 63 votes.
Bala Rabiu Lawan, Eastern Zone, Onne Port, AREFF scored 54 votes, Isikaku Ifeanyi Goddy Eastern Zone, Onne Port ANLCA, scored 52 votes and Kinsley O. Offor, Eastern Zone, Onne Port ANLCA, scored 44 votes while Christopher C. Okafor Eastern Zone, Onne Port ANLCA, scored 26 votes.
The CRFFN elections slot summary indicates that NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GOVERNMENT APPROVED FREIGHT FORWARDERS (NAGAFF) 8 SLOTS
2. ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN LICENSED CUSTOMS AGENTS (ANLCA) 5 SLOTS
3. ASSOCIATION OF REGISTERED FREIGHT FORWARDERS (AREFF) 1 SLOT
3. NAGAFF/INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES 1 SLOT
The above candidates won the 15 seats that will represent the freight forwarders on the 32 – members CRFFN governing council in the next dispensation.
However, Prince Ozo Chukwurah, the Vice- Chairman of Board of Trustees (BOT) of ANLCA and the former member of the immediate past CRFFN governing council, failed to retain his membership of the Council as he lost in the Western Zone. He scored 55 votes while Festus Ukwu, another ANLCA member lost. He scored four votes.
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Freight Monitor
Customs offers hands of fellowship to new ANLCA leadership , as Adeniyi congratulates Nwokeoji on his election
The Eyewitness Reporter
The Acting Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Adewale Adeniyi, has expressed the willingness of the Service to collaborate with the new leadership of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) under the leadership of Emenike Nwokeoji, in a bid to advance the customs brokerage sector and promote the interests of customs agents throughout Nigeria.
In his congratulatory message to the new ANLCA president, Adeniyi said his election was a reflection of the confidence the members of the association have in him.
While lauding the noble role that members of the Customs Consultative Council played in brokering peace in the war-torn association which eventually led to the conduct of a peaceful election, the customs boss said he was eagerly waiting for a productive partnership with the association.
Adeniyi however expressed confidence that Mr. Nwokeoji will provide solid and visionary leadership to ANLCA while working closely with the Nigeria Customs Service to enhance the collaboration between the two organizations.
“On behalf of the officers and men of the Nigeria Customs Service, the Acting Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi congratulates Mr Emenike Nwokeoji on his election as the National President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA)”
After five years of bickering and bitter rivalry that polarised the oldest freight forwarding group in Nigeria into factions, including several botched attempts to broker a truce, the much elusive peace eventually located the troubled association on September 7th, 2023, when an election, which outcome was accepted by all the factions, was held and Nwokeoji emerged as the president of the unified ANLCA.
Freight Monitor
Freight Forwarders threaten to shut down ports over alarming rate of extortions by maritime police.
The Eyewitness Reporter
The freight forwarders plying their trade at the Lagos ports are currently in a restive mood over what they claimed was the barefaced extortions, harassment, and intimidation by the maritime police.
The aggrieved customs brokers, in their petition to the new Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, have therefore threatened to withdraw their services if the excesses of these police officers are not checked.
In a four-page protest letter signed by Alhaji Tanko Ibrahim, the National Coordinator of the 100 percent Compliance team of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), addressed to the IGP and dated August 22, 2023, the irate customs brokers said the activities of these police officers have considerably impeded facilitation of trade.
In the petition, Tanko Ibrahim, who is also an elected member of the governing board of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding Practice in Nigeria (CRFFN), claimed these officers, in connivance with the shipping companies, indiscriminately stop and detain exited containers from the ports with the purpose of extorting money from the owners.
Tanko, who said these extortionist activities of the police were curtailed under the past administration of police IG due to the outcry of the oppressed freight forwarders, lamented that the menace has now resurgent with new vigour, as the police now carry out their extortions in the open.
“Since the advent of the new administration, the officers and men of the Maritime Police have not only resumed these activities but also even more daring.
“They do not only block the release of containers from shipping companies, but they also arrest and detain containers on the roads, and even allegedly go into fisticuffs with the officers of the Federal Operations Unit of the Nigerian Customs Service”
The petitioners however fingered one of the officers whom they said was daring and boastful of his nefarious activities.
“To compound and confound the matter, one of their officers, named Superintendent Kenneth Uwakool, who has been at Kam Salem House for more than three years, when the rapprochement was reached during the last administration, is the unrepentant bagman, who openly boasts that he is a millionaire.
“He sits atop proceedings in the extortion business’ the petitioners declared.
In the petition, each copy of which was sent to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, members of the National Assembly, and all the security agencies, Tanko Ibrahim, who ventilated the foul mood of the angry freight forwarders, claimed that the marauding police officers collect as high as N2m to N3m from their victims on each container before they let them go.
The petitioners wondered where were these officers when the Customs, in collaboration with other sister agencies, arrest containers with drugs, arms, and ammunition, accusing them of looking the other way while these illicit goods are being ferried away understand their noses.
He however appealed for prompt intervention of the new IGP in order to calm the frayed nerves of the harassed freight forwarders to starve off an impending showdown with the extortionist police officers.
“We, therefore, respectfully urge you, sir, to call the Maritime Police to order and save the ports from an imminent restiveness that may paralyze business activities and further cause economic loss to government revenue.
“We may have no option than to go on protest which may result in a possible shutdown of the seaports” the aggrieved freight forwarders threatened.
Freight Monitor
Abuja peace accord: Customs Consultative Council to supervise ANLCA elections in August.
— As ASECO, BOT members without valid operating customs licenses to be removed
The eyewitness Reporter
In yet another effort to realign the recalcitrant two factions of the Association of Nigerian Licenced Customs Agents (ANLCA) that have held the association hostage in a protracted ego war, the Customs Consultative Council(CCC) has brokered what seemed like a truce between the two warring parties.
The one brokered by the CRFFN some months ago has collapsed.
At a peace meeting convened by the CCC in Abuja, Wednesday 19th July 2023, members of the peace council, made up of Customs representatives, retired Customs officers,and past National Presidents of ANLCA, the council made far-reaching decisions that it hoped would restore lasting peace to the troubled association.
Part of the resolutions made includes the vacation of office by Kayode Farinto, the Acting President of ANLCA and other NECOM members within the next two weeks of the meeting while the BOT takes over the running of the association till the election holds before the end of August.
The meeting also adopted the 2013 Constitution of ANLCA while jettisoning the other two controversial constitutions of the two warring parties.
The adopted constitution was the one midwifed by the former ANLCA president, Prince Olayiwola Shittu.
It was also agreed that members of ASECO and BOT whose practicing licenses are suspect or could not be verified by the Nigeria Customs Service would be dropped from their positions.
The BOT and ASECO are to conduct and supervise the election not later than the end of August while the CCC will be an observer.
The structure fashioned out by the CRFFN during its own peace accord meeting would be adopted which created a unified BOT that comprises equal numbers of both warring factions but with the caveat that the BOT election be held immediately after the NECOM election.
The peace council advised that character/ Integrity and Capacity should be the criteria for choosing leaders for the elective positions in ANLCA.
The council also warned aspirants to conduct themselves with a high sense of integrity and maturity and educate their followers and supporters.
It also mandated that the BOT chairman and the vice chairman to issue a joint press release to enlighten members on the accord reached.
The CCC offered to host a post-Election Dinner in Lagos.
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