“It is a shame that we brought someone like Tony Iju  Nwabunike who came and messed up the association. His tenure was a disaster.

“For the fact that he is my brother from the same village, I was thinking due to his previous experiences, he would deliver and that was why I supported and even worked for his emergence as the President of ANLCA in 2018.

“But we can all see the disaster he turned out to be

“It is obvious that he was not prepared for the presidency of ANLCA. He just wanted to use the ANLCA platform to build his political career in national politics and boost his CV.

“He merely used ANLCA to boost his chances in national politics when he went to contest in the House of Representatives election which he lost and he never got his bearing since then.

“He was never prepared and that is why he turned out a disaster as the president of ANLCA.

“He was the one who plunged the association into the present crisis with the support of some members, especially the so-called elders, who are feasting on the crisis in ANLCA.

“Those merchants of trouble exploited the ineffective and lack of focus of Tony’s presidency to foment trouble which has brought the association down to its knees.

“The consequence of their inordinate action is the untold suffering of members who are agonizing under the yoke of oppressive policies in the port.

“We are watching with keen interest the efforts to bring back the elusive peace in ANLCA.

” Unfortunately, I am yet to be convinced of the sincerity of the peacemakers and other actors in the so-called peace process.

“It is ironic that the same people who are supposed to ensure peace in the association are the same people frustrating the peace moves,”  the Amazon of the freight forwarding industry said.

When reminded that she was making a grave allegation, the ANLCA queen retorted ” This is not an allegation. I discussed it personally with him. I told him it wouldn’t be right to further put an additional burden on our members in the name of POF.”Remember that before he came, ANLCA was in court to protest against the POF.

” The first assignment he undertook when he came was to withdraw the case from the court.

“He deceived members to withdraw the matter and settle it out of court.

“We gave him support, thinking he was honest and sincere about the whole process, not knowing that he was doing all these things for his own pecuniary interest.

“So, as I said earlier, POF is the major reason he became ANCLA president, which he never prepared for, apart from the fact that he also wanted to use the ANLCA platform to boost his political career.

“Unfortunately, they played into the hands of the Ministry of Transportation through the scheming of Tony and his cohorts and the government hijacked it.

“The whole issue blew open when Prince Olayiwola  Shittu, the then ANLCA president, was fighting with Boniface Aniebonam of NAGAFF over the sharing formula.

“Some of us were opposed to the collection of the POF but our leaders were supporting it for their own selfish interests.

“I queried the propriety of the POF, why should we be made to be paying practicing fees when, as members of CRFFN ,we pay our annual subscription fees?

Akpunonu further said that other members of such professional bodies as NBA, NMA and ICAN do not pay practising fees after their annual subscription fees.

”A lawyer, having registered with NBA  as a member, does not pay each day he goes to court.”, she declared

“Initially, the POF was to be paid directly to the associations, deducted at the source and share the proceeds among themselves but because of the in-fighting over the sharing formula, they invited the government to intervene by offering the ministry of transportation a token from the largesse.

“As God would have it, the government, which was not aware of such money, took advantage of the situation and hijacked it to the detriment of the trading public.

“They brought Rotimi Amaechi, the then Minister of Transportation, into the fray. So when Amaechi saw that there was money to be made by the government and the government was looking for ways to get money, he took control of the POF from the associations.

“Interestingly, the government only offers each association a paltry sum of N200,000 monthly from the proceeds of the POF which runs into millions of Naira every month.

“So, each association gets N2.4 million per year from the accrued billions being collected from the POF.

“Because of greed and personal interests of our leaders, the associations lost out and the government took over the POF.

“When Ameachi was brought into the picture, he said which money are you people collecting, pay it into the coffers of  Federal government.

“So they shot themselves in the foot.

“This was part of the consideration to get POF money that makes Tony Nwabunike become ANLCA president, thinking he would be making billions from the POF, but that was not to be.

“When the plan failed, he abandoned the association and fled abroad.

“Have you seen where a General in the army abandons his troop in the middle of a war? That was what Nwabunike did when he left ANLCA in the middle of a crisis under the guise of studying abroad. Is that not an act of cowardice?

“He made so many promises that ANLCA will pull out of CRFFN and that we are going to be a chartered association like Accountants did, did he do any of them before he ran away?

“He was not doing this but was busy arranging for the collection of POF.” Barrister Akpunonu alleged

“Also, Iju was still smarting from the loss of his House of Representatives ticket so he was not really settled to concentrate on the business of ANLCA.

“He left the association for about six months to pursue the House of Representatives ticket which he lost before he came back.

” By the time he came, the crisis in ANLCA had festered and overwhelmed him and his government has been hijacked by those who were overlooking the affairs of the association in his absence.

“Those who have benefitted from ANLCA are the ones trying to destroy it now. Those who have spent years in the position of authority in ANLCA refused to go, yet they will say the youths are the leaders of tomorrow but the youths are getting older without attaining that position of leadership.

“But I blame the youths for failing to rise up and take back ANLCA from these old brigades who refused to go.

“If the EndSars revolution does not play out in ANLCA, this problem of old people perpetuating themselves in ANLCA  leadership positions will continue with impunity.

”This is to ascertain the amount collected then and how it was used”.

“Government should even investigate the money because there was a time before the policy gained traction, some were collecting while some were not collecting before the government make it mandatory for all terminals to comply.

“Government should therefore investigate the amount that was collected then” she declared.