ANLCA: Things Fall Apart

Chief Peter Obi, Chairman ANLCA, Apapa Port Chapter

Rebellion and anarchy mount in the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), following the declaration of autonomy by some chapters to frustrate the Ernest Elochukwu-led national executive, accused of high-handedness, irresponsibility to the plight of members and chapter elections manipulation

By Innocent Chukwu

Chief V.O.E Asim, with the power reposed on me by the stakeholders, do hereby this day, the 11th of July, 2006 declare Lilypond chapter autonomous till further notice”. This declaration by the “sole administrator” of the Lilypond Ijora, Lagos Chapter of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), brought to a climax the swearing-in and inauguration of the newly “elected” executives of the chapter on Tuesday, July 11, 2006.

The Source at the event, witnessed several broad-chested rough necks, identified as bouncers to ward off uninvited guests and to provide security for the event. Speaking to The Source on their presence, one of the guards said: “We are not here to fight or intimidate anybody. We are here to maintain peace and ensure that the inauguration holds peacefully. But if anybody tries to bring trouble, we will beat him and send him out of this place.”

Interview

Let's Wash Our Dirty Linen in Public –Peter Obi , Chairman, ANLCA, Apapa Port Chapter By Innocent Chukwu What led to your taking over of Apapa Port chapter as the chairman? Thank you very much. Let me start from the genesis of the problem. I have been the chairman of the association (Apapa Chapter) for two times, which is seven years. I have served for two tenures and I have paid my dues as far as ANLCA is concerned. During my last tenure, between 2001 and 2004, toward the end of 2003, the BOT (Board of Trustee) chairman, Chief (Joki) Idornije called me to send for “water to pass through his own bridge”. He made mention of Seme (border chapter) and MM (Murtala Mohammed Chapter) that they have large quantity of water that they send to pass through his (Idornije) bridge. But that myself, who is in the premier port (Apapa), that he has not been seeing my hand. I told him that he has not been seeing my hand because I am different. You don't compare my pursue with all these places you have mentioned and that, the type of “water” I have that will pass to you is not the type you're requesting. So, at a time, sometime in August 2004, he served me a letter of suspension. Just like that for having not committed any offence. My offence was that there was another association by name IFFA (International Freight Forwarders Association), which we started then and I happened to be one of the members of the board. So may be he was feeling that the formation of IFFA may be a threat to his board chairmanship or to ANLCA. The man decided to clean his anus before going to toilet. This letter of suspension was coming three months to the expiration of my tenure (as chairman). Before I received the suspension letter, it was already with the CAC (Customs Area Controller) Apapa when I have not been served with it. It was the CAC that first showed me the letter and the following day, they served me the letter copied to CG (Comptroller General of Customs) at Abuja. Our constitution says before one is suspended you must constitute an arbitration panel to investigate him and give report. So the man decided to suspend me because I did not allow large quantity of water to pass through his bridge. Since 2002 till date, the board (of ANLCA) has not met, so it is only Idornije that decides everything. So I had to go to court to challenge the suspension because everybody condemned it. So it was when the court was about nullifying Elochukwu's election as president that he (Elochukwu) came to my office and wrote a letter to nullify the suspension. I accepted the suspension then because of my own magnanimity and then let go for the interim executive to come in. Is it lawful for you to have taken over the chairmanship of Apapa since you were not elected this time around? The BOT wrote that letter because we had no national body (executive then). I wouldn't have accepted it if we had national body then. The suspension letter has been written before the election of the national body. So after national election, EloChukwu came here and wrote this letter telling me to go back and complete my remaining three months. But because I don't have anything I left at the secretariat, I decided not to continue. Are you now saying you have come to complete your tenure? Yes. According to section 21, subsection 2(c) of our constitution, any interim administration must not exceed 90 days. The stakeholders of the chapter have met and decided that the interim executive must be dissolved. So they called me and my elected executive members to hold brief pending when the national body will hold election. Is there any plan to impeach the president? There is no plan to impeach the president. But I must tell you that Elo chukwu has committed impeachable offences. This is the worst corrupt administration I have ever seen. Today if you go to our (ANLCA) purse you won't find one naira, but they have realized over N13million from chapter elections. Many people see what is happening now as washing ANLCA's dirty linen in public. Are your people not feeling the same way? Let's wash our dirty linen in public. He is not worthy to be our president.

Instructively, before the inauguration of the Lilypond executives commenced, a police officer, Patrick Unuodionse, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) attached to the Lilypond Port Police, Ijora, Lagos, announced to the caretaker committee of ANLCA Lilypond that the command's Divisional Police Officer (DPO) had instructed him not to allow the swearing-in ceremony to hold. He, however, advised that “you could take it to any hotel instead of this place because madam (DPO) has called and instructed that the inauguration should be cancelled for peace to reign”.

Investigations revealed that the Western zone leadership of ANLCA and by extension, its national body, had sent one Captain George Nwabunwanne to seek police intervention so as to ensure that the chapter did not carry out the swearing-in event. Nwabuwanne, The Source observed, implored Unuodionse to use his good offices to call the chapter to order.

But in a sudden twist, the police officer, inspite of the ANLCA's national body's insistence on the cancellation of the ceremony through Nwabunwanne, its emissary, was visible as one of the members of the high table at the occasion.

Charles Osonwa, a chieftain of ANLCA, Lilypond, told The Source shortly before the commencement of the event that “the national executive sent three men from outside (the Chapter) to co-ordinate our affairs, but we refused because they don't want to care about us. But in the interim, we elected these people (to be sworn in) to man our affairs. What we are doing today is right of passage.”

The inauguration at the chapter, whose election was not conducted by ASECO, the ANLCA electoral body charged with the responsibility of conducting the association's elections, had some disenchanted ANLCA members in attendance, including Peter Obi, former Apapa chapter Chairman, Prince Ozo Chukwurah, erstwhile head of Tincan Island Port chapter, as well as other notable members.

Swearing the elected executives in, the Lilypond administrator of ANLCA, Asim accused the Chief Elochukwu-led national executive of calculated moves to use the Customs Area Controllers to divert containers allocated to Lilypond. He contended that the headship of the association has completed plans to manipulate the chapter's election as as to impose outsiders on the chapter.

Asim: “It is necessary to inform you that these (national) leaders connive with some agents to step our containers down at Apapa each time vessels are steamed to this command.

“.... they have completed plans to rig our election so as to impose outsiders on us as our leaders.”

According to the Lilypond spokesperson, these and many other sins of ANLCA national executive have contributed to the chapter declaring itself an autonomous faction of ANLCA. Consequently, four men, Honourable Osita M. Madueme (Chairman), Femi Olabanji (Vice Chairman), Lawrence Uba (Secretary) and Kalu Chima (Public Relations Officer), were elected by members to steer the chapter's afairs. Narrating his ordeal, Uba, the secretary-elect told The Source that though there were no plans yet to impeach Elochukwu, the president, “we cannot leave our affairs like that because for six months now, we have not had allocation of vessels here (Lilypond). Yet, there is still room for negotiation with the national body if they come to us.”

The Lilypond “rebellion”, many argue, come as a follow-up to a similar incident at the Apapa Port Chapter of ANLCA, Lagos on Tuesday, July 4, 2006. But, the Apapa insurgence differed from Lilypond's in a way because the Apapa uprising saw a complete take-over of the chapter from an interim executive by a former chairman of the chapter, Peter Obi, who alleged that he was humiliated out of office because he failed to dance to a dubious tune played for him by ANLCA's Board of Trustees Chairman, Chief Joki Idornije.

Narrating the reason for the Apapa insurrection to The Source , Obi stated that he ascended the chairmanship seat at Apapa Chapter on Tuesday, July 4 among other reasons, to complete the three months that remained of his tenure before he was booted out of office in March 2004 following a letter of suspension written and served him by Idornije.

Obi further alleged that the leadership of ANLCA was cunningly elongating the stay of the interim executive at Apapa in order to use its chairman, Chiedu Ngwube, to rig the chapter election and by so doing impose dubious candidates on the members. He disclosed that as a result, the stakeholders of the chapter consulted and reached an agreement that the Apapa interim executive must be toppled, and he (Obi) was made the chairman, pending when the national body would come up to conduct a fair-and-free election.

Asked if his actions were not unconstitutional since he left office due to suspension in 2004, the ANLCA top shot insisted that his action could not be faulted as he made reference to a letter that lifted his suspension. The said letter was written on October 5, 2005 and signed by Elochukwu, the ANLCA president.

The letter reads in part: “This serves to convey to you the decision by ANLCA leadership to lift the suspension order imposed on you last year (2004) as that suspension was erroneously made. By this lifting, all your entitlements and/or standings hitherto affected or infringed upon are hereby restored.”

Obi contended that Elochukwu nullified the suspension when he (Obi) was processing a court case to nullify his (Elochukwu's) election as the association's president.

The Seamap Group chairman lamented that “this (Elochukwu) is the most corrupt administration ANLCA ever had. They (executive) have realised more than N13million from chapter elections, yet no kobo is remaining in our account. We, the youth now want to reform ANLCA.” Obi debunked insinuations regarding the ill-conceived washing of the association's dirty linens in public.

“Let's wash our dirty linens in public. I'm not ashamed of it because he (Elochukwu) is not worthy to be our president. He is a ruler and not a leader. He is not carrying everybody along. He is autocratic and rigid. He's full of pride.”

Instructively, Obi denied knowledge of plans to impeach Elochukwu, but insisted that he (Elochukwu) has committed impeachable offences. He also accused the ASECO of attempts to hijack and manipulate the Apapa Chapter election which his group is fighting to resist.

Corroborating Obi, Chukwurah who is already in court to challenge the outcome of the TCIP chapter election, regretted that “inconsistency, incoherence, lack of co-ordination and team work within the ANLCA national executive have given birth to the rebellion in the western zone.”

Speaking further, Ozo averred that, “the national leadership of ANLCA and the two remaining trustees of the association have been forced to hear with their ears, see with their eyes and taste with their tongue the bitterness of wrong leadership”.

But in reaction to the series of allegations levelled against ASECO, its chairman, Olayiwola Shittu, told The Source recently that ASECO did not succumb to corruption during the chapter elections. He dismissed allegations of gratifications levelled against him in order to favour some candidates over others, but confessed that in exception of himself, the other 11 members of the ASECO had one candidate or the other whom they favoured in the election and therefore were fighting to protect their personal interests.

Shittu: “Well, I did not appoint the 12 members of ASECO. Each member came there for one interest or reason to protect. So, I had to balance the interests. Infact, let me be sincere with you, ASECO was sabotaged from within.”

Remarkably, Elochukwu, the ANLCA president repeatedly maintains that the insurrection in ANLCA stems from his hard stance to reform and reposition the association. He accused Austin Kelly of cooking up cheap blackmail against the ANLCA executive. Though none of the up-coming protestants has pitched tent with Kelly, analysts view the case of ANLCA as typified in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, where the centre appear unable to hold any longer. They argue that except the leadership of ANLCA rises quick to quell the insurgence, the national executive of ANLCA may be heading for the rocks.