Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, founder of NAGAFF
The founder of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam has given fresh indication that his group may reopen a pending appeal before the Appeal Court on the status of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN).
In an interview, he recalled that having lost the case at the Federal High Court level, the association approached the Appeal Court to either uphold the ruling of the Federal High Court or overturn it for the years now, but has not followed.
Though the Court ruled that CRFFN is a government agency and should be seen as such, NAGAFF felt that more is needed to cement the ruling and as such, approached the Appeal Court for further interpretation. Investigations by Business Hilights show that the appeal had been lying fallow at the court for years now.
Aniebonam noted that the reason why the appeal had not been pursued to a logical conclusion was because they decided to allow the sleeping dog lie so as to see if the council would make progress.
“One thing I need to tell you, we are just building a castle on a shifting sand but it is just that for us in NAGAFF, we decided to say okay, let us allow the sleeping dog lie because we are still in court, we are still at the appellate court for proper interpretation of the status of CRFFN. CRFFN is a quasi government agency under government control.
“But for peace to reign, we will still visit the issue because for instance, Mr. President never appointed the Chairman of the council. It is an elected members of the council that elect their Chairman. Jukwe who is the Registrar was not appointed by the Minister of Transport, he was appointed by the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria and the modus operandi for us to raise our money is there under section 6 of the council’s Act, other sundry expenses could be this issue of POF”.
Aniebonam said “We decided to hold on the case to give way for the council to set off, four years, the first council has come and gone, we are now in the fifth or sixth year as the case may be. We want CRFFN to kick-start, then we still have to go to the National Assembly if there are things we are still not clear with and the National Assembly will fine-tune it. That is what we agreed at the NAGAFF council, it not that we have accepted it, the case is there and the CRFFN is aware”.
