ANLCA@72: Making Celebration a New Covenant for Peace, Unity and Professionalism

BY EGUONO ODJEGBA

There are anniversaries that celebrate age. There are others that celebrate achievement. And there are anniversaries that provide an organisation with a rare opportunity to make a fresh beginning.

For the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), its 72nd anniversary could be, and should be all three. But above everything else, it should become a celebration of peace.

The significance of the forthcoming anniversary, billed for September 27-29, 2026  is not necessarily in the number 72. It is in what those 72 years represent: survival, professional identity, institutional resilience and the capacity of generations of customs agents to keep an organisation alive despite the changing fortunes of the Nigerian maritime industry.

It is also significant because ANLCA is coming into this anniversary after years in which internal disagreements and leadership crises tested the strength of the association. The fact that the association is now talking openly about peace and stability is therefore not a minor development.

It is perhaps the most important achievement that members can celebrate. For an organisation whose influence is derived substantially from the strength of its collective voice, division is expensive.

When members speak with different voices, the industry listens differently. When an association is preoccupied with internal disputes, it loses valuable energy that should ordinarily be deployed to address the professional and economic challenges confronting its members. And when a once-powerful organisation becomes weakened by prolonged internal conflict, everybody loses.

The government loses a strong industry partner. The agencies lose a credible stakeholder interface. The private sector loses an organised professional constituency. And members themselves lose the collective bargaining strength that an association such as ANLCA is expected to provide.

That is why the current peace should not be treated as a temporary interlude between crises. It must be deliberately protected, ‘by all means necessary’, apologies to the indomitable Asiwaju.

ANLCA has an opportunity at 72 to make peace more than a slogan. It can make it a culture. Of course, this does not mean pretending that there are no grievances. There may still be members who feel wounded by decisions taken in the past. There may be people who believe they were unfairly treated or whose expectations were not met.

Far be it from this stable to suggest that their grievances should be dismissed.  It is common knowledge that peace built on silence is rather usually, fragile. While on the other hand, genuine peace requires listening, fairness and reconciliation. The association’s leadership and elders therefore have an important role to play in reaching out to those who may still be aggrieved.

Those who have concerns should equally be encouraged to return to the table.There is room within a large professional organisation for differences of opinion. There must, however, be no room for the destruction of the institution because of those differences.

All things considered; the greater interest must prevail. That greater interest is ANLCA. It belongs neither to the present leadership alone nor to any faction, group, chapter or individual.

It belongs to generations of customs agents who have built it, defended it and depended upon it. It belongs to the founding fathers who established it in 1954. It belongs to the members operating at the ports, border stations, airports and other trade corridors today. And it belongs to the next generation that will inherit whatever institution today’s members leave behind. Here, the leadership style of Sir, Chief Ernest Elochukwwu, Prince Olayiwola Shittu and the examples of Mr. Emenike Kingsley Nwokeoji should serve as exemplary of immense conciliatory gesture.

This is why the anniversary should also attract the attention of government and private-sector stakeholders. The celebration should not be viewed merely as ANLCA’s internal affair. The association is an important component of Nigeria’s trade and port ecosystem.

Its members interact daily with the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Ports Authority, the Nigerian Ports Economic Regulatory Agency, the Nigerian Port Police, shipping companies, terminal operators and other agencies and businesses that keep the maritime economy running.

A stronger ANLCA means a stronger platform for dialogue. It means government has a recognized, trusted, and dependable constituency with which it can discuss policy implementation. It means regulators can communicate reforms more effectively to practitioners on the frontline. It means operational complaints can be aggregated, interrogated and presented through a structured professional channel rather than through isolated individual protests.

And it means the industry has a partner that can advocate for its members while also demanding professionalism and compliance from them.

That balance is important. ANLCA must defend its members. Conversely, defending members must never mean defending wrongdoing. Thus, the association’s future influence will depend increasingly on its ability to combine robust advocacy with professional responsibility.

That is the kind of ANLCA that government agencies would want to see. That is the kind of ANLCA that shipping companies and terminal operators will continue to respect. And that is the kind of ANLCA that members themselves should be proud to belong to.

The 72nd anniversary should therefore be more than a Gala Nite. It should be a moment of institutional reflection. Past leaders, elders, current executives, chapter leaders and ordinary members should use the occasion to ask a simple question: what kind of ANLCA do we want to hand over to those coming after us?

If the answer is a stronger ANLCA, then the first requirement is unity. If the answer is a more influential ANLCA, then the second requirement is professionalism. If the answer is a more respected ANLCA, then the third requirement is credible and responsible leadership.

And if the answer is an ANLCA capable of reclaiming the golden years often spoken about by its members, then reconciliation must become central to the journey and the impending conversation and celebration.

The association cannot go back and rewrite its difficult history. But it can decide what that history will mean. It can choose to allow past conflicts to remain permanent fault lines.

Or it can choose to transform those experiences into lessons about the value of dialogue, tolerance, institutional discipline and respect for due process.

Of course, the latter is the wiser choice. As ANLCA turns 72, therefore, there is a message for everyone. To those leading the association: preserve the peace. To those who remain aggrieved: give reconciliation a chance.

To the elders and past leaders: help bridge whatever gaps remain. To the members: protect the institution beyond personal interests. To government agencies: recognise ANLCA as an important professional stakeholder and strengthen constructive engagement with it.

And to the wider maritime community: celebrate an institution whose history is inseparable from the evolution of customs brokerage and freight forwarding in Nigeria.

Seventy-two years should not merely be a reason to look backwards. It should be a reason to look forward. If the anniversary can mark the point at which old grievances begin to give way to reconciliation, factional interests to institutional interest, and suspicion to cooperation, then ANLCA’s 72nd anniversary would have achieved something far more valuable than an impressive programme.

It would have given the association a new beginning. And perhaps that is the finest anniversary gift ANLCA can give itself.