CRFFN ELECTION: AGAIN, CREFFPON RAISES ALARM OVER INTENDED MANIPULATIONS
*** Says urchins and miscreants are being registered for the election
*** Calls Amaechi’s attention
By Mcanthony ONUOHA
In another open letter to the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rt.Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Ameachi, the Congregation of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria- CREFFPON, has cried out again over a faulty electioneering process.
In a press statement dated 20th September, 2021, signed by its Desk Officer, Pastor Edwin Chukwudire-Obi, and made available to the Prestige Blended Magazine, the group frowned at what it described as ” Emerging uprofessional Signals” that if not addressed, could mare the entire process.
The open letter is coming as an addendum to the first one in which critical issues bordering on the forthcoming election were raised for the Minister’s urgent intervention.
The statement reads in part,” Honourable Minister, the import of this second open letter is in keeping to commitment and consistent quest for preserving and upholding the professional ethos in relation to the conduct of professional election in no less manner to be applauded and adjudged as transparent, free, fair and credible professional election”.
” Pursuance to this commitment, the CREFFPON embarked on an industry monitoring, with the intent to document and communicate effectively, grey issues , to engender administrative intervention, which shall in the long run, enhance and guarantee a credible election.”
” Honourable Minister, it may interest you to know that, within this short period of this public notice as announced, the CREFFPON has observed the emergence of some unprofessional signals which are not just capable of posing a threat but may smear the integrity of the electoral Committee members as well as the outcome of the entire election, and making a mess of the electioneering process”.
CREFFPON, this time around, is calling on the Hon. Minister’s attention, as it observed that the ministry appears to have reappointed the immediate past governing council Chairman, as he still cruises in branded CRFFN vehicles assigned to the office as he parades himself as the governing board Chairman.
CREFFPON, in the statement expressed concern saying,” if the paraphernalia of office assigned to the Governing Council Chairman is presently in use by an appointed politician, who made his way to emerge as the Council Chairman in 2018, during the internal election of the Governing Council members, it means that a Chairman of the Board has been predetermined hence the election of the practicing freight forwarders into the Council is a mere formality.
It has been observed that even as the tenure of the council’s board members has since expired, the official vehicles assigned to them while in office are still in their custody, implying that their earlier insistence of a four year tenure and their open objections to the court ruling of two years tenure subsist even as they still campaign for reelection into the board.
Other observations include: Accredited Association claims; as one of the Associations has boasted of its readiness to sweep 10 out of the 15 seats provided in the council: the deployment of membership registration to the headquarters offices of accredited Associations by the CRFFN where bulk payments are made to the provided accounts and depleted as soon as the corresponding numbers of individual registration is consummated, then another bulk payment is made; massive recruitment of non practitioners suspected to be street urchins is being observed: and no format of screening standards was integrated in the registration process, the system is open to all person’s as no form of prerequisites for professional registration is required among other flaws, not excluding observations on the electoral time table and guidelines .
According to CREFFPON, all these and others not stated, further buttress the existing suspicion of a hatched political moves to return the immediate past governing Council members back to complete a 4 year tenure as the electioneering process is suggestive of executing an arranged script.
Finally, CREFFPON called for the Honourable Minister’s urgent intervention over critical concerns expressed by the practitioners, saying they can not be over emphasized, urging him to preserve the sanctity of the freight forwarding profession in Nigeria while reminding him that the need to douse all expressed suspicion is purely his administrative honour and responsibility.
