- Insists Alhaji Mustapha Remains Chairman
The Executive of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has accused the former Chairman of the BOT, Chief Henry Njoku of working in league with a member of the Board, Chief Peter Obi to falsify facts with a view to throwing the Association into confusion and anarchy.
The Board in a petition it sent to the National President of the Association, Honourable Tony Iju Nwabunike, and signed by its Secretary, Mr Taiye Oyeniyi a copy of which was made available to the Marine and Economy online , implored the Association’s President to warn Chief Njoku to desist from distorting facts and spreading rumours about the Association and the BOT with a view to perpetuating himself in office.
In the letter titled ‘’Re: purported leadership crisis in ANLCA BOT, setting the record straight ‘’ it made it clear that Alhaji Taiwo Mustapha has become the validly elected Chairman of the BOT sequel to an election held on April 13, 2018 where he defeated Chief Njoku with five votes against three.
According to Oyeniyi, the allegation by Chief Njoku to the effect that Alhaji Mustapha and other members of the Board elected in the Warri election of 2014 whose names have not been sent to Corporate Affairs Commission are not valid members of the BOT was a sign of failure and incompetence on his part to have been unable to send such names to the CAC since four years ago.
In the letter , the Board said if Chiefs Njoku and Obi were claiming not to recognize Mustapha as the new BOT Chairman for the fact that his name is not yet in the least of the BOT members in CAC, the implication is that the elections which made Njoku the BOT Chairman in 2014 and the one that also brought Honourable Nwabunike into office as the President of the Association in March this year were invalid because they were supervised by Alhaji Mustapha.
The Board Secretary said in the statement that though Chief Njoku in the letter he wrote to Honourable Nwabunike on July 18,2018 referred him to a pending suit against the election of Alhaji Mustapha , he pointed out that the suit was however instituted by the latter in conjunction with Chief Obi through their puppets , Lawrence Ubah and Osita Madueme
The Board thus urged the National President to disregard and not be stampeded by all the falsehood which Chief Njoku and Obi have communicated to him saying that he should remember that his own election, is also being challenged in the Court, suit no FHC/L/CS/562/18 and that despite this , he is still being recognized as the President by the Association and the BOT since the Court has not ask him to vacate office.
The Board stated that the matter of whether anybody elected as a member of the BOT would enjoy all the rights and privileges of a bonafide member is not an issue since the Constitution of ANLCA never said that the registration of the name of a trustee with the CAC will determine whether his membership or election as it concerns Alhaji Mustapha would be valid or not.
It explained that in the first place , it was never part of the ANLCA’s constitution that the Board should have a Chairman but that the Trustees decided to have a Chairman for administrative convenience while it was agreed after the 2014 election that the position should be rotated every two years alleging that Chief Njoku had however used all sorts of tricks to want to remain in power since 2016 when he was supposed to have ended his two years .
It will be recalled that the leadership crisis in the ANLCA BOT reared its ugly head sequel to the decision of Chief Njoku not to accept the election of April 13, 2018 which saw Mustapha becoming the Chairman of the Board after defeating the former Chairman by five votes to three.
Though the National President of ANLCA waded into the crisis on May this year, through a meeting he had with the disputed parties after which it was agreed that the former Chairman should stay for another three months to prepare for handing over to the new Chairman but the interpretation of when the concession period would lapse again sparked off another confusion.
However , Alhaji Mustapha had to organize the Board’s first meeting in July this year as the BOT Chairman on the ground that the three months should read from the date of the election of the BOT Chairman into office, whereas , Chief Njoku and his camp believed that the counting of the three months should begin from May 13, 2018 when Nwabunike had the meeting with the parties and should end August 2018.
