“My Interest In The forthcoming BoT Election Non-negotiable” – Dan Katsina

Sir John Alfred Ofobike needs no elaborate introduction, haven been very visible and active in the politics of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) for over a decade.

In this interview with Eguono Odjegba, the man popularly known as ‘Dan Katsina’ and who served as the Director General of the Nwokeoji/Oduntan Presidential Campaign 2023, bares his mind on what constitutes the conscience of the upcoming Board of Trustees (BoT) election, and why only members with genuine interest to serve should be voted into the board.

He also spoke of his interest in the forthcoming board election, and on the industry, he urged the leadership of the Nigeria Customs  Service to pay more attention on northern border stations which he worry, is very porous. Excerpt:

The date for the 2024 Board of Trustees (BoT) election has been fixed by the Association Electoral Committee (ASECO), as a long standing participant in the association’s leadership structure and front line customs broker, can you prescribe the standard for contestants in terms of capacity, character and reputation, looking at the level of mutual disrespect and suspicions between the board and the executive committee in the immediate past dispensation?

Thank you Odjegba, l like your style, you’re always neutral in your reportage, you report interviews and issues verbatim as they are presented. Having said that, let me say that for some time now l have been having some health challenges, more so because l didn’t follow my doctor’s advice hence l caused some of the problems for myself. But l traveled and l am back and taking my doctor’s advice to rest and to avoid rigorous activities. Thank God my health challenges didn’t affect my brain or memory. Every living being no matter how healthy sometimes must be sick, but after treatment at the hospital, he must thank God and make effort to keep away from avoidable death. We must do what we must do but we must also know that when death comes at its time, there is no medication that can stop it. We must reexamine all our earthly struggles in the light of what is right and heavenly acceptable. I am saying that man must fear God, l have been part of ANLCA’s administration for about a decade, have been at the centre stage of political and leadership position; l have been participating in all the functions of ANLCA, be it election, be it whatever. My voice has always been heard, sometimes when you want to employ somebody, you ask for certain qualifications and years of experience. Sometimes qualification alone does not give you the job, experience also plays some role. So l think l have the qualification and experience to talk about ANLCA, about what is happening in ANLCA. And we had a very bad crisis which lasted five years to the extent the government was toying with the idea of proscribing ANLCA.

But we thank God, and like the proverbial cat with nine lives which ANLCA has, we survived and we are back on our feet and regaining the place and position we lost in the maritime industry. Since this administration led by Mr. Emenike Nwokeoji was elected it has been going from one place to another, rebuilding broken bridges and reconnecting with critical stakeholders in line with its restoration agenda. This ANLCA have been doing wonderfully well, representing the clearing and forwarding industry. I have said it before, again and again that ANLCA leads and others follow, whether by circumstances of birth, image, reputation, responsibility or representation.

So we are about to embark on board of trustees election, an election that is very important because the BoT is the father of the association. It understands how to watch and knows when to intervene to allow peace to reign. Remember that the crisis that rocked the association in the last administration was caused by the BoT, if you didn’t know, know it now. The BoT rammed into the NECOM and there was a divided house. Now we are about to conduct a new BoT election,   my advice to the electoral body is to allow the process to be transparent, free and fair.

To do this they must insist that all participants abide by the rules, if you’re not qualified to contest; you’re not qualified to contest. This ASECO must look back and understand where we are coming from, to understand what caused the crisis and hence must avoid any repeat. Also my advice to everyone of us members is to search our conscience and ask question, because a good product does not need much advertisement, we must understand the character of the individuals who have expressed interests to come into the board, is he coming to build the board or to destroy what we have so that the problems begin all over again? ASECO must do its job well and members and voters should look inward to make sure that we choose the best amongst the contestants.

Can you be more specific on the areas they should introspect about and apply moral safeguards as it were?

In elections money works, money changes hand, we should be careful about people who are coming to do the election on the strength of money. If your interest is ANLCA but you collect money and you vote a wrong candidate, you’ll be like the bird that fly, fly and wants to rest it wings. Instead of it to perch on a tree, it went and perched on a rope. The bird that flies, flies, flies high and the wings are tired and it wants to rest went to perch on a rope. What will be the repercussion, the rope will be swinging and the bird cannot find rest. We have heard that some people have called some members to send their account details that they will send them N100,000 so that they can give them their votes. Now if somebody is bribing voters with such amount of money to vote for them and the board is not a place you come and earn any money but just to serve and contribute to the growth of the association, so what is the real motive for spending such huge amount of money? That is why l say the electorates should search their conscience and vote rightly. Most of the problems we are having in this country is because we don’t elect those who have the love and capacity to serve, we elect the highest bidder. That has been the problems we have been having in this country, from the federal to state and local government; and that is why the best candidates don’t always emerge as happens in other parts of the world. So my appeal is that we should not collect money to vote the wrong candidate, we must do the right thing for the sake of ANLCA.  We have suffered bitterly but we reconciled on the basis of no victor, no vanquished. Now there is no ANLCA A, no ANLCA B again, we must maintain this restoration. We should search our conscience if really we want ANLCA to grow, by voting the right people into the board. We must understand the function of the board as prescribed in the constitution. We must not bring a board that will interfere in the day to day running of the association by the NECOM. We should not vote a board that will divide the house again, that is my advise.

Can you speak on the distortions and sluggishness that has characterized the industry dues to policies issues?

You must understand that there is a general downturn all over the world since Covid 19. Even many big economies are still struggling to stand up on their feet, it is the same thing imports and customs trade is suffering from here in Nigeria; the economy is not doing well.  And in our case the customs have the responsibility to generate revenue for the federal government, but like you know the foreign exchange is not only high but comes with fluctuations, so imports have been affected. Importers who were importing ten, fifteen containers before are now importing one or two containers. It is noteworthy that the CGC is doing very much to reform the customs and customs brokerage to international standard relying on his experiences at international fora when he served as public relations and administration strategist under many CGCs. So revenue is doing very well under CGC Adeniyi. But l want to advise him, that he should not pinch himself and bring the whole blood  in his body to donate to a sick child. If you transfer all the blood in your body to somebody who is sick, it is either you survive or the person who received the donation survives; or the two of you die. This translates to mean that customs should know that its revenue is import dependent, the little he can do, let him do and he is doing his best. But let him encourage export, export is booming now but there a lot of export checkpoints on the road. Export growth will raise our foreign reserve and improve foreign exchange, so the CGC should encourage officers not to put too much pressure on export of cargo.

Again the level of seizures been made by customs on daily basis is very impressive seeing the level of seizures of arms and ammunition at the seaports, which is alarming. But what is happening at the seaports cannot be said to been happening at the border stations, there are lot of unmanned border stations through which so many things comes in. At the seaports there are many security gadgets installed to ensure that any illicit trade does not escape the eagle eyes of the officers and men. But such cannot be said of the border stations, there are lots of porosity mostly at the northern stations; and at the same time, so much incidences of terrorists attack. As such, officers and men posted there are apprehensive when on duty.  They will be working and thinking about their families they left people at home, so it reduces their productivity and there is not much they can do in those places. The CGC should put his searchlight on that side as they are doing elsewhere. So far so good; the customs is doing well.

There are reports that over 700licensed customs agents have been registered for the purpose of this board election, there are concerns that given attempts in past elections there might be cases of infiltration; what is your take on this?

How do you identify members of ANLCA? All licenses by customs is supposed to be for member of ANLCA, that is licenses given to customs agents. Haven said that, we don’t just say you are a member because your name is ABC Nigeria Ltd and you are licensed then you are a member, no. If you wish to be a member of ANLCA, you write an application through the chapter, pay dues and become a member. So technically, l don’t think there is infiltration, we have over 2000 customs licenses if not more, so that this figure of 700 is even a very low number in terms of registered members.

Plus if in reality those already registered for the purpose of the election are not authentic members of ANLCA, what is the implication?

 One man does not own a company, a company consist of a board of directors, so if a director in a company approaches ANLCA to become a member, he is registered. So the shortfall in the number of those said to have registered may be due to inability of most members to registered, because annually, you must register. It could be because of the crisis that lasted for five years some members didn’t update their financial obligations and once you are not financially up to date, you cannot be registered for any activity in ANLCA. Because of the crisis there are factions in some chapters, so what this NECOM did was to throw the registration open, register with N10,000,  N5000 for chapter registration…and it was advertised. But your registration alone does not qualify you to participate, ASECO will call for verification of those licenses, you will be required to show the original copy of the incorporation of your license.

Also the ASECO is required to work with the Nigeria Customs Service Headquarters Abuja to be given the license master list to support the verification process and identify fake licenses. We must also know that in every election, there is always brouhaha, so we are not expecting any less in ANLCA, especially given our huge numbers.

Can you speak on the distortions and sluggishness that has characterized the industry dues to policies issues?

You must understand that there is a general downturn all over the world since Covid 19. Even many big economies are still struggling to stand up on their feet, it is the same thing imports and customs trade is suffering from here in Nigeria; the economy is not doing well.  And in our case the customs have the responsibility to generate revenue for the federal government, but like you know the foreign exchange is not only high but comes with fluctuations, so imports have been affected. Importers who were importing ten, fifteen containers before are now importing one or two containers. It is noteworthy that the CGC is doing very much to reform the customs and customs brokerage to international standard relying on his experiences at international fora when he served as public relations and administration strategist under many CGCs. So revenue is doing very well under CGC Adeniyi. But l want to advise him, that he should not pinch himself and bring the whole blood  in his body to donate to a sick child. If you transfer all the blood in your body to somebody who is sick, it is either you survive or the person who received the donation survives; or the two of you die. This translates to mean that customs should know that its revenue is import dependent, the little he can do, let him do and he is doing his best. But let him encourage export, export is booming now but there a lot of export checkpoints on the road. Export growth will raise our foreign reserve and improve foreign exchange, so the CGC should encourage officers not to put too much pressure on export of cargo.

Again the level of seizures been made by customs on daily basis is very impressive seeing the level of seizures of arms and ammunition at the seaports, which is alarming. But what is happening at the seaports cannot be said to been happening at the border stations, there are lot of unmanned border stations through which so many things comes in. At the seaports there are many security gadgets installed to ensure that any illicit trade does not escape the eagle eyes of the officers and men. But such cannot be said of the border stations, there are lots of porosity mostly at the northern stations; and at the same time, so much incidences of terrorists attack. As such, officers and men posted there are apprehensive when on duty.  They will be working and thinking about their families they left people at home, so it reduces their productivity and there is not much they can do in those places. The CGC should put his searchlight on that side as they are doing elsewhere. So far so good; the customs is doing well.

There are reports that Sir John Alfred Ofobike is not contesting the board election and many observers are wondering, given the fact that you have been visible in ANLCA’s politics and having served in various capacities even as Coordinator of Western Zone. What happened?

I want to say this, when l contested Apapa chapter chairmanship position, l didn’t plan it, it was not in my agenda, l hadn’t any ambition to do so. It was members who approached me and said ‘come you can do it better’, so l stepped out and l won the election, back to back. Then l contested as western zonal coordinator,  l won again, back to back. I am an association person, l believe in ANLCA, l believe that everything must not be about Sir John Ofobike, hence l felt l should sit back and allow those who l think are better than me to take the front seat. Some people approached me and l said no, let the best hands and those with genuine zeal to serve, who have been quiet and sitting by the side come onboard with other tested and trusted hands. I am a democrat l believe this leadership service can go round amongst qualified members. So my stand is to let the best candidates win, candidates with genuine love for service, after this election there would always be another; if l am still alive, time will come people will say again ‘Ofobike come, it is your time’.