AS CRFFN ELECTION DRAWS CLOSER
Saying it as it is remains a rare act that has never been adjudged a crime in a true court of justice.
Alas, the is drawing close for a fresh election into the governing Board of Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), after months of heated litigations filed by former Board members, groups and individuals stakeholders from various quarters.
Now that the former members have served out their tenures and a new opportunity beckons, it is the desire of freight forwarders that the new Board gets core professionals who can chart a new course for practitioners and not charlatans who are completely hollow when it comes to freight forwarding practice. As another opportunity beckons, freight forwarders are anxiously eager to see core professionals who have the knowledge, the expertise to unlock the frontiers and gain access into the freight forwarding secret archive to seize the manual in which solutions to professional challenges are clearly embedded.
As the electioneering processes begin, the fear of getting it all wrong back to back can be seen on the faces of concerned professionals. This indeed is another golden opportunity to get it right and to ease their minds of professional burdens.
There is indeed no modicum of doubt that the immediate past members of the governing board failed woefully as their tenure can not boast of any meaningful contribution to the welfare of those they represented. Their tenure was a period of jamboree as nothing practically meaningful was achieved. It could be said that they were elected into the board to rubbish the noble profession. No apologies !
The forthcoming CRFFN election is another opportunity for freight forwarders to slam their Jokers on the game table. Yes, the N500,000.00 nomination form cannot be afforded by some of those who have the capacity to effect great change in the Council; and looking at the pedigree of those who line up for the election, one can perfectly distinguish between those whose confidence lies on their bank accounts, and those who have the intellectual and professional capacity to effect the real change; the needed change.
Canvassing support for charlatans and money bags to take over the job of core professionals will only spell disaster for the second time. The CRFFN governing board should not be an exclusive reserve for those with deep pockets, rather, it should be an assamblage of industry bests, those who have the capacity to brilliantly dissect issues bordering on the freight forwarding profession and the Maritime industry.
However, some of those jostling for the Board membership of CRFFN are immediate former members who spent their tenure without making the least impact on the welfare of freight forwarders, some of them arrogantly enjoyed the paraphernalia of office without the least regards to those who gave them the mandate; they are back again, believing in the magic of their deep pockets, and unfortunately, those who are ready to make do with whatever they can offer and return them constitute the electors, and there lies the challenge.
Nevertheless, lack of proper academic or professional proof by aspirants would not in anyway redeem the ugly situation, simply put, there would be no positive results.
Besides, if l may ask, WHY THE MADNESS OVER BOARD SEATS ? Those who are trying to be the determining factors in who goes into the board fail to carry out intellectual and professional capacity check on those jostling for the seats. And on their own part, the primary constituency they superintend over, what’s the welfare of their members like, what programme have they in place in area of legacy ?
In all honesty, freight forwarders are in dear need of core professionals who can present cases and defend their interests at all fora. Members of the governing board of the CRFFN should be made to understand that they are representatives of freight agents at the council, and so, should not fail to diligently and professionally carry out their duties to both the Council and those they represent .
Mcanthony Onuoha is a Maritime Journalist and Publisher, The Prestige Magazine
