ANLCA REMAINS UNDEFEATABLE -MUKILIA
Otunba (Alhaji) Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukilia, immediate past secretary of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) and one of the forces behind the restoration and stability in the association, speaks extensively on all the issues, distractions and progress of the association. Having been in the frontier of ANLCA, he is presently aspiring for the board of trustees’ membership (BOT) in the forthcoming coming election. In this interview, he shares his account on the issues. Excerpts….
CAN WE MEET YOU SIR
I am Otunba (Alhaji) Abdulazeez Babatunde Mukilia, CEO of Mickey Excellence Nigeria Limited, a licensed practitioner by Nigeria Customs Service (NCS). Equally, a freight forwarder registered by the Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN). I have been in practice for over 30 years. I’m also a member of ANLCA.
SIR, ANLCA IS THE PIONEER BODY OF FREIGHT FORWARDING IN NIGERIA, BUT OVER THE LAST 5 TO 7 YEARS , THERE HAS BEEN A WHOLE LOT OF CONFUSION GOING ON WITHIN THE SYSTEM AND ONLOOKERS WITHIN THE INDUSTRY DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING, CAN YOU TELL US WHAT IS HAPPENING IN ANLCA, NOW?
I won't say, there is confusion. I will rather put it in this way: ANLCA is an association that is built on corporate membership. When you have such a situation, you will agree with me that the membership is based on equality. Every company is registered by the Corporate Affairs Commission and the provision that makes a registered company a member of ANLCA is your Customs license by NCS. And we have our corporate existence. Therefore, every notable face or name or gladiator or executive you meet in ANLCA, is representing a company. So, when you have such a situation, they are not just discussing on individual level, everybody has come with an interest. And that interest has translated into an association and you must have actions and reactions. There are frictions because these are companies. If am representing my company, I fall back to my office and say, what is going on in the ports? What is our take, it is that take, that I take back to ANLCA and as I keep pushing for it someone is coming with a different take. So, you now see us having issues, pushing and shoving each other until we agree.
What you see in ANLCA is an idea coming in a pool to interact and see who have the most beneficial way to do things. I can only say, when you say there are crises, I keep saying they are distractions as far as I know because the constitution of the association is germane. The first thing ANLCA does if you want to enroll into the association is to give you her constitution. Go and read it, do you want to be part of this? Because, these are the rules of engagement and if you agree to it and the list under Section 2, the provisions of the constitution inherently should be adhered to. And then you see somebody in any form of what I call distraction could be any Executive or member that wants to lord another person, then you see the party calling your attention, ”excuse me this power you want to exercise as an executive, where did you derive it from” and if the other party doesn't want to abide by the constitution, you see us dragging issues. This is what you always see in ANLCA. It is not about fighting; it is about what the constitution says and sometimes, it might erupt out of the provisions of what the constitution says because there are ways and manner for you to resolve every difference. It is even in the constitution. It is even stated under Section 26. It is stated that you don’t step out of the bounds to resolve until the orderly laid down mechanism is exhausted. However, you still see somebody sometimes trying to jump outside that bound to ask for restitution while the thing is paining them and that is where you see the constitution playing its role in case of people going out their way. Finally, we still come back to the table. I think, what is playing out in ANLCA, is equality and not privilege. And you don't see such in any other association, I beg to disagree, because every other maritime association I know is about, I hire you , I fire you. You don't do that in ANLCA. Even the president lacks such power to hire and fire a member.
SIR FOR CLARITY, ARE YOU SAYING THERE IS NO PART OF ANLCA 'S CONSTITUTION THAT RECOGNISES INDIVIDUAL ENROLLMENT?, IS IT RIGID THAT WAY?
This is ANLCA constitution. Maybe when the constitution review committee sits, they might look into that. As at now, this moment, who shall be a member is clearly stated under Section 4: that membership of the association shall be limited to corporate bodies, though there are people pushing for what we call associate members but they are yet to be attended to.
HAVE THOSE PUSHING FOR ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP BEEN ABSORBED IN THE ASSOCIATION?
No.
SIR, THERE IS THIS BELIEF THAT SOME OF YOUR MEMBERS ARE NOT LICENSED BY NCS.
That is not true to the best of my knowledge. You must be licensed, recognised as a top management staff and then be recommended as a card- carrying member of ANLCA. A licensed company must recommend you in writing for you to carry an identity card of my company Mickey Excellence issued by ANLCA.
SIR, CAN MORE THAN ONE PERSON EMERGE FROM A COMPANY?
Of course, yes.
WHAT IS THE LIMIT?
There is no limit. I can recommend 20 of my staff to carry card of ANLCA; the liability is on me.
SIR, WHAT IS THE SITUATION RIGHT NOW, FROM THE OUTSIDE IT SEEMS ANLCA IS NOT REALLY SETTLED AS IT SHOULD BE,BEING THE PIONEER LICENSED CUSTOMS AGENTS ASSOCIATION IN THE COUNTRY?
I think you'll know, we are coming from a journey, a journey of distraction of over five years. God willing, we have new national executives, who are in charge of the governance of the association. And people know me for one thing, wherever I say things I will like to justify it in the constitution. It is what binds us together. Section 6 talks about the national officers who shall be known as National Executive Committee. So we have new national executive officers headed by Emenike Nwokoji. And he has come in with what he called RESTORATION, as his selling point.
That he is coming to restore ANLCA, her glory and to restore ANLCA back from the crisis. So the slogan says it all. He is trying to restore. He is still in the work, and I believe, he is doing his best to get us back on track. To me I don't see any much issues again.
HE HAS BEEN ON THE AFFAIRS OF ANLCA FOR ABOUT ONE YEAR NOW. WHICH CONSTITUTION IS HE WORKING WITH?, IS IT THE LAST ONE THAT WAS AMENDED AT OWERRI, OR THE ONE THAT SAYS YOU HAVE ONE TENURE OF 5 YEARS TO STAY IN OFFICE OR THERE HAS BEEN A COMPROMISE?
There have been a compromise. And what is the compromise? We felt in our tenure that what is bringing this distraction, is the attempt of anyone to stay after their first tenure, that I have to do second tenure and then another of unwholesome practices of sit-tight syndrome, making people to say President will not do second time. It became a big tug of war or battle. You will recall that only the President who served two terms was Prince Shittu and if you recall how the second tenure came to be. His second term was practically stopped by a lot of pursuit. Fortunately, I happened to be the chairman of our electoral committee then. I stood my ground that, if it was a jinx we needed to break it, that the man was going for a second term, that if anyone wants to challenge him, let him step out, not that elections should not happen. I recalled a lot of issues. However my team and I were steadfast and we were able to say the elections must hold. The elections held and Prince Shittu became the president, the only president that served two terms. Coming from that background, I became the national secretary, Dr. Farinto, vice president and Tony Iju, president. We thought, whatever idea you want to sell, you should be able to sell it in one tenure. Instead of a president doing four plus four to make eight years, why not do five years and leave. because, if you have five years and whatever idea, whatever you want to become, whatever path you want to place ANLCA in five years, you should have done that, and we stuck by that. Anyways that was during the distraction. Why I say there has been compromise, the Customs Consultative Council (CCC) stepped in, in attempt to resolve the crisis unanimously and the 2013 constitution was adopted. It was adopted because at the material day and time at that venue of the meeting that was the constitution in ANLCA file at the Corporate Affairs Commission and the now retired DG of Customs asked, ' look if we there are four different constitutions on the desk, if we step into CAC office, and we were having this meeting in Nicon Hillton, Abuja, which constitution is in the file? Myself as the national secretary then told him, this is what you will find. Because the other constitution we did due to distraction had a lot of legal framework trying to stop it. And CAC was saying look, we want you to resolve these legal fire power, stopping us from registering, we are not part of the agreement. We don't know about this, and it has to be resolved to what we have in our file right now. And we are back to 4 plus 4 again as we are trying to do a whole lot of compromise to resolve the 5 years issue. That is what has happened.
SIR, DON'T YOU THINK THAT THIS 4 PLUS 4 MIGHT RESUSCITATE THE DISTRACTION AGAIN?
The constitution can always been amended. Now, in ANLCA there is no more which faction do you belong? We are back as one entity, and if the current president decides to look into it, this can always happen. I believe they are calling an AGM, and I know it is going to happen very soon. I think we should set up a new committee. It is only at the AGM that you can change the provisions of the constitution. So I believe, if the president looks into this clearly, in his attempt to do restoration, he can revisit what is good for the association.
SIR, WHAT PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT IN ANLCA ARE SAYING, IS THAT WITH THIS ANLCA, IS FINISHED, THEY WILL SOON GO BACK TO IN-FIGHTING AGAIN. THEY HAVE GIVEN LEAD WAY TO OTHERS TO TAKE OVER THE FREIGHT FORWARDING INDUSTRY AS LICENSED AGENTS. DON'T YOU THINK, THEY WILL BE JUSTIFIED, SINCE ANLCA IS GOING BACK AND FRONT WITH THIS CONSTITUTIONAL THINGS?
I don't think so. I do strongly believe that, now that there is not any person that Emenike will say A and the person will say B. Everybody is giving the benefit of what we have agreed, that we are one and that we are back together and I didn't see us going back into Egypt. Like I said before, somebody like me will do everything humanly possible to make sure we didn't go that way again.
SIR 30 YEARS IN PRACTICE, WE WILL LIKE TO KNOW SOME OF THE POSITIONS YOU HAVE HELD IN ANLCA. TAKE US INTO YOUR ADMINISTRATIVE EFFORT IN OFFICE.
Over the last 30 years I have been around if I should count on the efforts, I have contributed so far in ANLCA; I started some way back as secretary of Apapa chapter around 2009, after that I became the chairman of Association Electoral Committee (ASECO) which is our national electoral body. I held that position from early 2010 till 2017, as a matter of fact I held the record as the longest served chairman if the committee. And during the 7 years, all what ANLCA knew about procedure, as it relates to ANLCA, myself and the committee that I worked with, very profound, passionate people, we were able to chart out a course for ANCLA and that stability is the reason why we are able to break the jinx of no president has ever served two terms. It was during our time that my committee members made it happen. In the course of that position I have held different portfolios as chairman of ASECO, I was able to create a database for ANLCA and we called it biometric registration and the president of the day , Prince Olayiwola Shittu keyed into the project effectively and I was able to drive it. As of today, at a snap of your finger you can tell "who is a member in ANLCA; not just a member but at which chapter because that is what the constitution says. It says an applicant shall be sponsored or referred by at least two financial members at the chapter level. You must determin or at least tell us, which of the chapters you belong. And once you choose Apapa, you must go and look for a valid member who will be your referral. We were able to achieve all that during my tenure. So we achieved that concurrently, With my position as ASECO chairman, there was no election that was overturned.
After an election, you know in life anyone that loses will cry. Everybody have the longitude to run with their crying of blue murder. Even some went to court but no election was overturned. I believe that is as a result of due diligence and the transparency of the process.
In 2018 I decided to run as national secretary. Actually I emerged as unopposed as every other person stepped aside as I picked the form. I served under Tony Nwabunike and we were supposed to stay for four years., In our own wisdom we felt the four years was the issue. Why not we add one year and we didn't decide that At Owerri, we equally asked the members seated at that hall, do we finish four years and come back to serve another five years? The whole hall said no. We then decided that since the certificates we had read four years we all given one year by resolution and not to come back to serve in that position. And it was passed, so we abided by it. But during the distraction period some people felt no, you can't elongate your tenure. They turned it around, and said it was tenure elongation. And we called them to table, since you don't want us to do plus one that means you want us to come back and do five years more. Though they understood that but they were twisting the whole truth that Iju wanted to elongate his tenure. Instead, Iju was doing the association a favour of the five years. They turned it round, the crisis, the distraction was intensive. Terming it elongation is not acceptable. That was what transpired until when we were able to resolve it though authorities in the industry stepped in and finally the CCC came in lastly, and, as we were stepping out of office, the association felt somebody should be in the office, there shouldn't be a vacuum. Tony Iju’s government was winding down and we needed someone to administer this association., I was appointed the sole administrator from 2023 April till Sept when I superinteneded and brought in the new government, the administration of Emenike. Emenike ran against Farinto and won. I stepped aside and retired to my office but the president sent me a letter of appointment, that he would like me to hold the International Relations Committee and Biometric and Records and I have resumes that office as the chairman of the committee. And once there is need for any data on what has happened, I will oblige with what I have. Since I left behind all documents at the secretariat, so anything they think, check but could not lay hands on, they will always call me and I will do the best i can to ease their journey. That’s my journey so far in ANLCA.
THERE IS THIS RUMOUR GOING ROUND THAT AN ASSOCIATION LIKE ANLCA HAS BEEN RAN DOWN, AND THEY CAN'T STAND ANY MORE. WE WANT YOU TO DROP A LINE FOR THOSE WHO ARE MAKING THAT STATEMENT.
ANCLA is a cat with more than nine lives as ANLCA remains an association to beat. Whoever that is saying that must be ignorant of what ANCLA is and of the fact that ANCLA is a pot where you have equal strength of members. When you don't see or hear ANCLA making news about fighting is because we are building and at work. And by the time that those saying ignorantly that ANCLA is nowhere see what is coming
in ANLCA they will be a fool to say that. ANCLA that I belong, is not a place where one man dictates the pace, it is a pot where lots of issues are discussed by people with equal strength.
Okay, let's say ANCLA has been run down. What have they done to cover the space? Whoever that says ANCLA is sleeping, what have they done standing or awake? What difference have they made or put on the table while they felt ANCLA was asleep? We are professionals. Whenever the government is driving a project, maybe monetary, fiscal policy or policy statement, ANCLA will go backwards look at it critical and add to the government position by having a memorandum or by meetings.
There is no forum you see government agencies related to maritime that you don’t see ANCLA being represented, maybe by dropping memoranda or presenting papers. So ANCLA is alive doing what they how to do best.
WHAT WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT DO YOU HAVE FOR ANLCA MEMBERS ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE NEW DAWN?
Firstly, let everybody play by the rule. You are member of ANCLA because we agreed to be custodian of the constitution. I will continue to tell everyone in every forum that the constitution is our agreement book. Let ever member abide by the rules. Let everyone know who is in charge of administration and governance.
Lest I forget, presently,I want to be a member of the Board of Trustees of ANLCA. With my years of experience, I narrow it down that there are frictions between the governance and the BoT who are supposed to function in line with the provisions of the constitution. You have a situation where the constitution says under section 2 that the president is in charge of governance and day to day running of the association then you have the BoT on the other hand dictating what should happen and what should not happen daily. It is the Trustees that protects the interest of the association but instead of receiving the bullets that are coming from outside on behalf of the association, now turn around to face the association. This has always been the real issue in ANCLA. Once the president says A, the Trustees will say B. So I feel my job is not finished yet. I need to go into the Board to redirect and reorient and change the discussion to let the BoT know that the president is in charge and also the CEO of the association that is what the constitution says. The trustees are non-executive directors, who want to plow into the play of the daily activities of the association. We need to define that.
CAN YOU TELL US WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CRFFN OR HAS THE AGENCY BEEN SCRAPPED BY GOVT?
The Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN) missed the whole point of existence along the way,, All the practitioners, felt we need a baby, a point where we will all meet. We need somebody to direct us and it has to be within us to go into that council so we can understand and solve our problems when they arise. But when the whole idea was defeated was when the government with some connivance through the back door came in and hijacked the office and took it back to the Ministry of Transportation as civil service organ. They encroached in while the CRFFN was birthed by freight forwarders in the industry. ANCLA played active role in the formation of the agency. Tony Iju was also the pioneer chairman. He happened to be a front line Customs broker at that point., Then suddenly the government came in from behind, do whatever they needed to do and hijacked it. CRFFN at that point forgot who they are and that has been the bane up till today.
Suddenly they turned around to christen themselves as revenue generating agency and that was not been the focus. The money being paid per container, the battle begun internally over who controls the money? Then there arose backbiting and fighting over who controls the money and it was resolved and handed over to a vendor to go and collect it, and take some percentage. Some of them turned around to be behind the vendor. The big issue is how what is remaining will be shared. The Act recognises that freight forwarders are the pillar of membership. Now, who are paying this money you are gunning at? It is still the stakeholders. So what comes back to them was agreed and that has never seen the light of the day.
The agreement stipulates that any company that pays will get 30% of it as the generator of the money and up till now, nothing has happened.
Now, we are asking questions. This is what was agreed. Where is the money?, Do you know that every container you see on the road paid N2,200 per 40ft and N1,200 for a 20ft container. Rumour has it that some money has been patched up, paid to some fictitious account so to say, and there is no clear answer of what is the truth up till date. In a nutshell, CRFFN has derailed from the enabling provision of the Act that says it should train the freight forwarders. I have not seen anywhere they are training anybody. I attended one of their programs at UNILAG, we paid handsomely to attend, about N250000 per participant for a two-weeks training. They called it Executive Diploma. How many people can afford that?.
CRFFN has failed to tap into it to give us the direction of training rather it has been about money. CRFFN will need to go back to basics, restart all over, and do some amendments if need be. It is no more a rumor that the governing council that was to run for two years has been disbanded. And some people fought tooth and nail to get into that council, spent fortunes to get in there. But, when it was being shared per slots among associations, it was very easy. But the last election, we were told everybody should go in and fight for it. So people jumped in and it became a national election and people spent fortunes. Hence it has become an issue, and the government has asked them to source for fund. CRFFN should go back to why they are set up, and retrace their steps and deliver on those provisions and then I think they will be back on track.
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