‘Court Not NECOM Removed Adewusi, Former MMIA Chapter Chairman’ – Nwokeoji, ANLCA President

BY EGUONO ODJEGBA

The National President of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Mr. Emenike Nwokeji has refuted misleading reports that the National Executive Committee (NECOM) headed by him sacked the immediate past Chairman of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) chapter, Prince Bangbala Adewusi.

He clarified that Adewusi’s sack was done by the court and explained that what NECOM did was merely to ensure that the court was implemented when it became apparent that people were using the judicial lacuna arising from non adherence to the court ruling to foment unending crisis.

This is even as Nwokeoji who addressed select journalists Wednesday at the Association secretariat in Lagos insisted that Mr. Tope Akindele is the authentic chairman of the MMIA chapter.

He maintained that irrespective of forcefully holding unto the chapter office through the instrumentality of the Nigerian Police, Prince Bangbala Adewusi remains an impostor and usurper, and occupying the office illegally; with a caveat however that the National Executive Committee (NECOM) led by him is working to ensure he vacates the office.

Nwokeoji also explained that the decision to ask Adewusi to leave the office followed the approval of the National Executive Council (NEC) being the highest decision making body of the association; and on the backdrop of legal advice that continued disobedience by the NECOM to Adewusi’s sack by a competent court of jurisdiction does not only expose the nation’s judicial system to ridicule but is encouraging more crisis in ANLCA which is growing worse and not good for the image and wellbeing of the association.

His words, “One of the knotty issues we inherited was the MMIA Chapter issue, before we came on board…in our handover note, we received two judgments…where a lot of litigations is going on. The first step this NECOM did was to gather elders and considering that the three gladiators, pardon my words, were all Yoruba’s, we gathered Yoruba leaders mainly from that chapter and challenged them to look into the matter. How come that the matter has protracted, that we need to come to a resolution that will end whatever has been going on for over five years.

“When they came up with their report, as NECOM was yet to meet to study the report, one day we got another report that one of the actors came with police and arrested the chairman (Adewusi) and took him to Zone 2. When we got that report, we met to study the report by the elders and then said now that the matter has gone to this level that we needed to do something.”

He explained that a committee was thereafter set up to investigate the disturbances with the aim of containing the worsening scenario.

“We set up a committee comprising of two lawyers to look into the matter, but like most decisions taken, there was an outcry that one of the lawyers is an interested party because he represented one of the gladiators in the court. So we had to meet again and dropped that lawyer and appointed a former chairman of the airport chapter to join the team.

“They met a number of times and invited all the three contestants, they all obliged and testified and the committee came up with a report, and that report was read at the Emergency NEC Meeting after which it was adopted, and NECOM met and agreed that one, based on the report… we now revisited the matter because the report exposed some hidden facts in the judgment.

“There was recommendation that the matter all this while has been lingering because the past administration did not obey court orders, that they ignored directives from the court including judgment, and that that was why the thing (crisis) continued to be there. By the approval of the NEC, NECOM decided to at least execute the last judgment…l will avail you copies, the judgment went on to rubbish the earlier one.

“One of the things the judgment said is that if the Exco then had obeyed the court order stopping them from conducting the illegal election, that the issue of one man contesting against the other wouldn’t have arisen at all but because they ignored the court order and went ahead to conduct that second election, that that was why the issue was compounded.”

The association leader went on to disclosed that rather than seek to promote the peace and harmony and make himself amenable to the decision of the association especially as it concerns the court ruling, Adewusi hired the services of the Nigerian Police to support him to continue to occupy the chapter leadership office, illegally.

“But unfortunately, after the inauguration he wrote letters to all the security agencies notifying them about the change in leadership at the airport. This NEC meeting took place on a Friday, we were surprised on Sunday afternoon, l got a call (from) the police…he says he is a policeman, an inspector, that he has a letter for me.

“l asked what is the letter about and from where, he told me and said the letter is from the Airport Command. I said the security men are there you can hand it over to them. So we got that invitation against Monday. On Monday, because we are law abiding…since l was in Port Harcourt, l asked some people to go and represent NECOM and they had that meeting.

“All we discovered was that the past chairman, Adewusi ran to the police to make a complaint that he is been removed unjustly.”

The ANLCA President lamented that the crisis of the association is been sustained by members he described as ‘professional trouble makers’, who according to him have made crisis a means of livelihood and hence are troubled whenever there is peace. He also disclosed that some of those supporting Adewusi to cause trouble at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) chapter are ‘outsiders’ who have no business with the area.

“We observed that those people have been reaping from trouble in ANLCA, whenever ANLCA is in peace, their body will be itching them because they always want crisis. They are not from the chapter that is why l say they are professional trouble makers, they are not registered there, they don’t operate in that chapter.”

For daring the association and seeking to bring it into disrepute and more crisis, especially for showing gross insubordination to the association and it’s constituted authority, Nwokeoji said Adewusi will be made to face a disciplinary committee which will hand down appropriate sanctions. In addition, he said no member will henceforth be allowed to flout the laws of the association and go scot-free.

“So the former chairman rather than handing over to the new executive he decided to ignore the decision of the NEC by inviting the police to help keep him in power. That is reprehensible and a serious affront to the entire association, particularly to the Office of the National President and NECOM. That gross insubordination cannot be allowed to stand.

“l don’t know how the idea came into the head of the former chairman. Like l said our constitution is sacrosanct and clear actions will be taken against such insubordination.

“The good thing about all of us that are leaders is that we all swore to uphold the constitution of this association, what NECOM has just done is to implement or execute the valid court judgment. And if a person is not satisfied with what we have done, the person is still at liberty to write because we have internal mechanism to sort out any issue. But resorting to police to now protect you to remain in office is something…”

He also put the lie on the mouth of those who he accused of going to town to spread falsehood and mischief that the NEC Meeting suffered a walk out, noting that the report was a blatant lie designed to achieve ulterior motives.

He argued that some of the ongoing flashes of purported misunderstanding and crude lies are orchestrated arm twisting that seek to extend the pains of losing positions contested for in the last election.

“Last week, a lot of things filtered around the story relating to the interview one of us granted claiming that there was a walk out at our Emergency NEC Meeting. In as much as l do not want you to believe that the issues we’ve been having in ANLCA is totally over…truly it is over.

While appealing to members of the association to stay calm in the face of the current provocation, Nwokeoji also disclosed that but for his appeal to members, Adewusi and his supporters would have been made to beat a retreat and show respect for the rules of the association and its authority.

“I want to use this medium to appeal to our members…because even last night, you can see l have lost my voice again…l know what it took us to stop our members from reacting after yesterday’s meeting. So l want to appeal to our members to remain calm, NECOM is handling the matter because we were voted in under the mantra of restoration, we can’t come to start to destroying what we have vowed to restore.

““That was a meeting we stayed back for long and were chatting. I know some people are doing this just to provoke us so that if we react, then they will see what they can lay hold on. If somebody that attended a meeting and informed me directly that he might not stay to the end of the meeting, l said no problem, the good thing is that at least you attended that you can leave at any time, left the meeting and went to address the press that there was a walk out, that will tell you the extent people can go just to….”

Sounding philosophical in the face of the ongoing conspiracy, he attributed much of the efforts to wipe up trouble as political. This is even as he encouraged leaders to accept defeat in a sportsmanship stride, noting that when he lost the presidential contest years earlier, he congratuklated the winner and went back to his business.

“You can’t win somebody in an election and expect that whatever you do the person will clap for you. Even in contemporary politics, you’ll still see people…up till yesterday, some people were asking question, where is our president (President Ahmed Tinubu). Maybe when the man comes back, they will look for something else, so it’s natural.”

Speaking on the elections of chapters in the western zone in addition to the election of the Board of Trustees (BOT) particularly which has drawn flak from some members, Nwokeoji attributed the delays to a number of factors, namely absence of valid membership registration, period of the year and finance.

“Having said that, l need to bring you people to speed on some of the approvals given by NEC at the emergency meeting. One was the approval to open up the portal for renewal of membership registration. You know before now, people have been shouting, accusing us of not being quick to conduct a simple election as agreed with the customs consultative council (CCC).

“But the reason being that there was what we can call, lack of authentic membership register. You know there were factions before now. One faction was registering both members and non existing members; the other faction was doing that to beef up the voters list, so there is no way we can use that. And then, when we came in, in September the year was just coming to an end.

“Apart from that, finance was an issue, when we noticed that if we continue to wait for finance that it might take longer, we decided that no, we need to conduct this election. And it happened to be early in the year, members were looking for money to renew their licenses and there is no way we can conduct election in 2024 using 2023 licenses.

“So we said let’s wait while we search for money because there is a window left for every member to renew their licenses by the Nigeria Customs Service, that window closes in March 31, any license not renewed will not be used to do business with the customs, but you can always renew it any other time. But until you do that renewal the licenses are not valid, so we said, let’s wait for the end of March 31, 2024 to enable as many as possible of our members to renew their licenses.

“These were issues we were dealing with before the NEC Emergency Meeting, the good news is that people are responding because wherever you are in the country or outside the country, you can always open the portal on your phone online, fill the form online, make payment online, download the receipt, attach to the form and submit. As it hits the system here, the system automatically generates a receipt which is forwarded through the details in the form.

“It is seamless, people are responding and after we have gone through it, the ASECO, because we gave a cap that by the 31^st of month (May), we will look at the number that has registered and used whatever number we have to conduct the election. But again it is still subject to reactions from members, because you know finances are not easy to come bye now, but NECOM would look at it and know what to do.”

He also clarified controversy that has trailed the composition of the new Association Electoral Committee (ASECO).

“You people remembered when the chairman of ASECO resigned that a lot of stories followed it. Now we reconstituted the ASECO another story followed it, NECOM because of the process we are into to ensure we move along with everybody, we have decided to look at the outcry of members and see how we can build some adjustment on the membership because the first list released dropped some members of the ASECO.

“So the NEC meeting agreed that those members should be called back, and then the ASECO will roll out their programmes for the first job they intend doing which is the BOT election.”

On the controversy that trailed the setting up of interim leadership at the Western Zone chapters, he said:

“The third issue that NEC gave approval was…you know so many of the chapters in the west here have factional leaders, one chairman this way, one chairman this way, we said no, that six months after election that we can no longer continue to retain such a thing, moreover their tenure has expired. So what to we do, we went to NEC  and got their approval that we are now going to appoint administrators to administer those chapters for not more than 90 days within which the election in those chapters will be conducted.”

He also expressed worry about what he described as permissive journalism that takes delight in promoting falsehood, noting that such unethical practices  has the tendency to inhibit progress and greatness of a nation and her people.

“Sometimes one starts wondering why we write simply because we want to write, we should verify. And moreover when people package anything they like and you people push it out, I know  maybe because of our legal system, where the wheel of the law grinds slowly, because of that people take advantage of it and say ‘yes we can do anything, you can meet us in court.”

Trusting in the victory of good over bad, he said his trust in God and the laws of the land and association to reverse the current crisis.

“The good thing about ANLCA is that whatever comes our way, God has a way of resolving it for us. When that report came I started wondering, l know two of you were at that meeting, l don’t know whether you people noticed the walk out (laughs along with journalists).”