The Managing Director, Skelas Nigeria Limited, Prince Olayiwola Shittu, who is also a former President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), in this interview with BAYO AKOMOLAFE, speaks on Nigeria’s freight forwarding sector and other issues in maritime industry

From your experience in other countries, would you categorise Nigeria as a truly maritime nation?

Yes. Any nation can chose to call itself a maritime nation. Even Togo and Republic of Benin called themselves maritime nations. Any country that has the sea should consider itself a maritime nation. Nigeria has more than 1,000 kilometres of sea front. We have the population, we have the largest imports. In fact, we rely more on imports than exports. Maritime is a veritable avenue for government to generate revenue.

But the system is somehow. I remember during the time of Okonjo Iweala, former minister of finance and before the advent of Single Treasury Account (TSA), it was said that all maritime agencies should generate their own revenue and pay 40 per cent to the government. So what happened to the remaining 60 per cent? Even the TSA that says all revenue must go into one central account, who is monitoring it? So don’t let me go there. On whether Nigeria is a maritime nation or not, at International Maritime Organisation (MO), the level of compliance is used as yardstick for recognition as a maritime nation.

If we are not domesticating and complying with rules, why then are we considering ourselves a maritime nation? Nigeria is a very lucky country from where we are. We are not Niger Republic that is land locked. Other countries in West Africa have coast. Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, all have coast, but it is our commercial activities in maritime industry that make Nigeria a leader in the sub-region. Once you are in that position, you must fit into international regulations. But whatever agreement or convention you entered into, if you don’t domesticate it and enforce it, there is no way it will work. You see some of the disgraces we have at the International Maritime Organisation. Can you imagine, the position that is meant for West Africa is taken by Ivory Coast? It does not make sense. We should be in the fore front. It is not that we cannot assume that leadership position in West Africa, but it is because everything we do in Nigeria is politically considered. We have jettison merit.

In your opinion why is the Nigeria Customs Service so deeply9 interested in revenue generation instead of trade facilitation?

When I was in office as the president of Association of the Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), we had the opportunity to travel round the world to rub mind with other international custom brokers. It was during one of such trips that we met withl the Secretary General of the World Customs Organisation (WCO), Kunio Mikuriya. That trip was arranged by the World Custom Brokers Association and International Federation of Customs Brokers Association and this question came up. What is the role of Customs? Then, the man threw light to it. He told us that customs of different nations operate according to the need of i n d iv i d u a l nations. He said that some countries do not rely on customs to generate revenue. What they are set for is anti-smuggling and security concern. Their revenue agencies are like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) that handles revenue from import and export. He also explained to us that each country will determine the role its customs will play. Mikuriya said that countries which are import dependence always have revenue at the forefront and use customs for revenue generation. In Nigeria, we have oil and we are crying about revenue target for customs. Imagine, Nigeria without oil and we are great importers. We are always thinking of revenue generation, we down play trade facilitation. Trade facilitation is the opposite of revenue generation. As long as the country decides that revenue generation is the only role for customs, we will continue to downplay trade facilitation. That is why Nigeria cannot meet up with 48 hours cargo clearance target. Majority of our imports don’t meet the required compliance level and because our compliance level is low, the customs service subject our imports to physical examination in order to maximise on declaration. That is why you witness multiple checks at the port. You have command officers, Area Commands, Federal Operation Units that stand as check against smuggling or low declaration. We still have Comptroller General task force among others. Those layers are supposed to work against non-compliance. It will also give room for revaluation to make more revenue.

Why do you think the International Federation of Customs Brokers Association (IFCBA) has been dormant since you left office?

I don’t know, maybe the succeeding executives of ANLCA felt it was not necessary. This is why you see that International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA) is on the same board of World Customs Organisa- t i o n (WOC), just like the customs brokers, and FIATA says their membership is by individual companies or by one org anisation representing the country. It is the same thing we have in the IFCBA; it is one association representing one country and ANLCA was the one that was chosen because we were the ones practicing customs brokerage. FIATA could have also chosen NAGAFF to represent Nigeria. However, everybody wants to go to FIATA, it is not the CRFFN that should be representing Nigeria on FIATA because they are a regulatory agency, it is the associations that should belong in FIATA. Organisations could also belong to FIATA, for example the DHL, based on the transportation they do are members of FIATA.

Is ANLCA still representing Nigeria on IFCBA?

Our position is there, we have two slots in the board and I don’t know who is following it up now. At a time before I left, I told them I was leaving and that election is going to take place; this was why I was happy that some of the people who worked with me and know the process would also be in the new government but the unnecessary war created made some of us feel circumspect. When you give an advice that somebody do not like and he reads meaning to it and question your motive, not necessarily looking at the message or how beneficial it would be. When I was leaving office, it was the time that IFCBA management was to visit Nigeria, but the ANLCA elections caught up.

Do you believe effort of CRFFN would pay off in resolving ANLCA crisis?

That is what both parties are waiting for. They have agreed that to abide with whatever CRFFN says. However in the CRFFN, there are those members who are involved in the crisis; the former chairman of the board who has refused to go is a member of the council. This is why we are looking at their report now; this is why I am saying that I am waiting for their report to know if they have done well or not, but whatever it is, we just have to move on. A lot of people come to my office, some people accused me of sponsoring them and giving them money to fester the crisis. The question I ask is, as a former president, should I run away from the people who had worked with me? Some of them still come to me for assistance including the people in their own offices.

What is your opinion on the state of CRFFN?

It won’t be appropriate for me to speak now until the report of the CRFFN comes out. If their report comes out, no matter where the pendulum swings, we can now see if they have done well or not, after all, we are all involved in the council. Even the makeup of the CRFFN and the way they are conducting their kangaroo elections is going to make it difficult for them to function. You cannot appoint people that you are going to regulate to come and be the decider of regulation, when they are the people to be regulated. The mistake made is on the election of freight forwarders into the CRFFN. It should have been by appointment based on merit. All regulatory bodies are based on appointment. What I am saying is that any regulatory body is by appointment. It is the government that should do the appointment, CRFFN is a government agency, it was removed from the private sector so that they can self-regulate but like every Nigerian sector, people don’t want to be self regulated. When you now ask them to regulate themselves, what do you expect?

But we have other professional groups like lawyers and engineers regulating themselves.

You wouldn’t say that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) is self regulated. Associations just like ANLCA, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) and others; their job is not to regulate themselves, they are there to fight for the rights of their members. When it comes to regulation, it is best done by government itself. We all saw the outcome of the last election into the CRFFN. Is that supposed to be called an election? Have you seen any regulatory body doing that kind of arrangement we just did? Where people were selected just to fulfill a purpose? This is the main reason why CRFFN is having problems.

Do you suggest that the Act, which establish CRFFN, should be amended?

The Act says that the Minister of Transportation should direct the affairs of the council on a general note. Part of the regulation should have been that election of various associations should be supervised by the CRFFN so that the right thing can be done. The CRFFN should regulate the associations and the individuals. However, the council we have is more interested in who is paying money for practice, annual renewal and so on. All the litigation going on in ANLCA today, the CRFFN could have stepped in at any giving time to give direction and a lot of things would have been corrected a long time ago.

What is your position now that you are being regulated by CRFFN and the Nigeria Customs Service?

From the beginning, I have always believed that the customs broker by virtue of his service is closer to the Customs; they are better regulated, majority of the people in the industry today would rather prefer to answer freight forwarders without any regulation because CRFFN is not regulating anything but the customs broker is regulated by customs because there are yardstick to the performance of your activities. That time that we were promoting customs brokerage to be members of the board of the World Customs Brokers Organisation which is also on the board of World Customs Organisation (WCO) we were trying to get the best international standard available, but a lot of people did not liked it. It is not everybody that is a freight forwarder today that is in NAGAFF or in the CRFFN, if you put all the associations registered by the CRFFN now, the number of non-members of the CRFFN outnumbered those who are in the associations. But under regulation, you must belong to an association. If government is thinking of amendment, they should remove that self regulation from the Council’s Act. This is the main reason why CRFFN stepped into ANLCA matter and everybody were having skepticism from both sides. The government should take full control, you cannot take half control. What has been the impact of having elected members into the council whose job is to regulate themselves? This is just the bane. If you are a freight forwarder, and all you do is to pay your annual dues and charges to CRFFN, and you walk away until another year, why should a regulatory body like CRFFN not be able to warehouse all the necessary fees, which would be more than enough to run the CRFFN, but that is not their focus because they get money from government, whether people pay or not. Now, we have ended up that, for every job you do as a freight forwarder, they must collect Practicing Operating Fee (POF), which means their interest is in money and not the job. This means the error is from the formulation of CRFFN by the freight forwarders themselves. I don’t want to be part of those that believe they are the fathers and mothers of CRFFN. It doesn’t matter who thought about the idea or who midwife it; what matters is the practicability of what we have on ground. If you are a doctor and you graduated being a doctor, it does not mean that you must be the one that would regulate yourself. The council Act already gave room for the leadership of the freight forwarding associations to be members of a body set up called freight forwarders. Consultative council, where they interface with management of the CRFFN, this is more than enough. This is where major challenges can be trashed. A lot of people were thinking that CRFFN is meant to come and challenge the Nigeria Customs Service in terms of policies, but that would never happen, because no regulatory agency can lord it over another regulatory agency. The freight forwarders thinking is that the CRFFN must match forward and take action on all the problems in the sector today. This is not good enough for some of us who decided that we want to be customs brokers, this is because everything is now subsumed under the word ‘freight forwarder” which simply means movement of cargo from one place to the other.

How do you separate the brokers who are regulated by customs from freight forwarders regulated by CRFFN?

Everyone who graduated as an engineer joins Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) which is the regulatory body of the profession but within that body there are structural engineers, who are automatically in COREN; just like we all belong to CRFFN, if the generic name is freight forwarding, there must be specialities of those who are in the profession, presently it is not defined. When I was ANLCA president, we met with the CRFFN and advised them to borrow the COREN idea whereby, every aspect of engineering is represented by an association but they all report back and are regulated by COREN. The COREN is not about people regulating themselves; appointment into their governing council is by the government, but the associations report to COREN to protect your interest. This is the same thing that applies in the medical field; it is not enough to say this is freight forwarding and every other horizon is blocked, at the end of the day, you just want everybody to come and pay money. If you are a customs broker, you are responsible to customs regulations, but if you want to be a freight forwarder without customs regulation, it is left for you to be a general freight forwarder without specialty; are you a transporter or you are just bearing the name freight forwarder? We mentioned it at that time, but a lot of people kicked against it. At that time, we were travelling and interfacing with customs brokers all over the world, whenever we have challenges, we reach out to some of our counterparts all over the world and they inform us of what is being done in their own country. We attended the South Korean educational system, we participated for a short time, there, we saw Customs Brokers and Customs officers were being trained simultaneously. Imagine a situation whereby we went to Customs Training College, Abuja for a course whereby officers and agents are participating, the outcome of that course is that when you meet in the field, you would be able to harmonise positions without anybody lording anything over you. Once you give somebody a license, you are supposed to guide the person on how to operate.

As a former president, why are you silent on ANLCA crisis?

Something happened in the association which has never happened before. In the past, when we do our elections, the loser congratulates the winner, while the loser goes back to plan for another election next time. But in this case after the election of 2018, it was not so, it was like there was an enmity where the winners were looking at losers and their supporters as enemies who refused to vote for them. I have always believed that when you are the president of an organisation, don’t worry about those who voted for you because they are already with you. It is those who did not vote for you that you would have to go for; there was no reason why Tony Iju should not have called on his opponent who lost the election to seek his support so that they can work together. But right from the day of the inauguration, we saw that this was a new dimension, the immediate Vice President, Emenike Nwokeoji was kept in a corner, I was the one telling them that he should be on the high table, the man lost an election and he still came for your inauguration, but they were treating him as if he was a nobody. Even after he has openly hugged the man who won the election immediately after the election, this should have shown you that he is in total support of the winner. However, it took eight months of persuasion before Tony Iju could call on Emenike. There was nobody that I have not spoken to among the warring parties, the best thing I could do was what I did, I gave them advise. The first week of the election, I had a dinner with the new president and I advised him that he was likely to get a stiff response. This is because, when I came into office, people like Taiye Oyeniyi hated me with a passion but I had to go and knock their doors and ask what is the problem? What do you want me to do? People thought that this action I took is a sign of weakness. This is not a matter of politics whereby you are waiting for compensation; association is about you going voluntarily to work for people at your own cost with your time and finances. So, why are we driving away people that can contribute to that success? When I got to a stage whereby both factions started suspecting me, I had to step aside and be on my own.

Can we say the association has lost its past glory?

In the past, whenever any organisation wants to do anything, they first call upon us to seek our opinion and buy-in. For instance, ANLCA was part of the Pre-arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) we are using today. I have made efforts to call people to resolve the crisis, ranging from Innua Mohammed among others. Our former President, Late Alhaji Sanni Shittu, may his soul rest in peace, we knew that he belonged to a faction but one thing that alienated me from them all was the issue of elections into the Board of Trustees (BoT). When I was ANLCA President, the board announced to us at a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting that they would be conducting their internal election every two years to change their leadership. The internal leadership of the board is not even in ANLCA constitution, it was done to allow them run their internal affairs. If they are now trying to change their leadership at the time that I was leaving office what is my own business with that? Non board members got involved in the matter, because they were looking for excuses paying back the alienation done to them, which is just a human nature. For example, when some person’s were suspended or expelled from the association, I had a word with the president and advised him that the people you are sending away also have stakes in this ANLCA, If some of them did not participate in ANLCA, there would be no association for us to inherit, but refused to listen, so I had to relax.

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