Ex-CRFFN chairman faults new electoral committee constituted by minister
By Eniola Idris
The last may not have been heard of the accusations and counter accusations that characterised the appointment of new leadership for the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarders in Nigeria (CRFFN).
Some members of the council have picked holes in the constitution of an electoral committee by the Monster of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
Formal Governing Council Chairman, CRFFN, Aare Hakeem Olanrewaju, in an open letter to the minister, said, “a fundamental error has been established in the making of the intended electioneering process” which he said it’s members has questionable integrity.
Olanrewaju, who commend the minister for eventually seeing the need to attend to the one of the numerous professional concerns impeding the advancement of the freight forwarding profession in Nigeria, said “fundamental errors have been established in the making of the intended electioneering process”.
He listed the errors to include: The immediate past Governing Council Board was not properly dissolved.
He added that, “presently, at the expiration of the outgone Governing Council Board, while the elected freight forwarders in the board heeded to the court seeking for their tenure elongation to four years and not two years as provided by the Act 16, 2007; the appointed politicians were immediately reappointed by the minister, ahead of the freight forwarders election, from the last experience this type arrangement creates room for political manipulations and undue leverages.
Olanrewaju also said that, “Unconfirmed reports has it that, there exists an internal understanding and arrangements for the appointed politicians to work assiduously and to deploy a process that will guarantee the return of the outgone freight forwarders represented back into the Governing Council Board of the CRFFN.
“Wherefore, the freight forwarding practitioners are still very much doubtful and worried about the possibilities of the minister, unknowingly might have play into the initial conceptualized tactical electioneering and voting process packaged by the outgone Governing Council Board.
“It is on record that, the immediate past Governing Council Board set up a Tactical & Strategic Electoral Committee before their tenure elapsed, but the components of such electoral arrangements are still very much around in the present making as encapsulated above.
“It is important to openly lodge the skepticism expressed by the generality of the freight forwarding practitioners which seeks clarification to the effect that, this published election notice is not in any way a mere tactical and strategic electoral committee and system or better stated, a furtherance of the formal Governing Council Board,” he stated.
According to him, this expression is apt because we aware that: “In a “first-past-the-post electoral system, a vote is tactical when it is cast for a selected candidate not on merits, but to best influence to ensure such candidate wins in the constituency”.
Another, crucial observations is the Identity of the Electoral Committee Members which has not been made public – again, this further cast integrity question on the electoral arrangements.
Base on the forgoing, he said the freight forwarders require a confidence rekindling statement by the minister on the issues raised above.
