Chief Ambassador Afam Chukwuma is the Managing Director/CEO of International Supply Chain Systems Limited and the Deputy National President Seaport NAGAFF. In this interview with Pearl Ngwama of JustNet News, he highlighted the importance of maritime to Nigeria’s economy. He urged all the freight forwarding associations and stakeholders to support the leadership of Kingsley Igwe as the Registrar of CRFFN.
Excerpts
Could you introduce yourself sir?
My name is Chief Ambassador Afam Chukwuma. I’m the Managing Director and CEO of International Supply Chain Systems Limited, a foremost freight forwarding Company in Nigeria. I also happen to be the Deputy National President Seaport of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF).
What is your view on the performance of the Marine and Blue Economy, has it proved the need for its creation?
Regarding the question about the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, you know, for a very long time, we’ve had a lot of interplays in maritime industry. We’ve had intergovernmental agencies, disagreements and squabbles and inability to coordinate. And when there are some of these clashes, it’s always difficult to resolve these issues or come to an agreement because various agencies support various ministries.
And so getting the two ministers to come together, you know, goes with so much protocols and headache because everybody reports directly to the president. So what this has done is to give the ministry, the industry, a dedicated ministry where almost all agencies are under one ministry, under one minister, under one reporting line. So it becomes easier to handle issues, to resolve issues, to make decisions, to plan and to have matters resolved. That’s essentially it.
And also, don’t forget that the maritime industry is the bedrock of Nigerian economy. Even the crude we are talking about, which is the oil, which is Nigeria’s number one, runs through the maritime industry. The crude is found in water. It’s under the ground.
To move the crude, you need to position vessels that have to sail on the sea. Even to bring in finished products, you have to use tanker vessels to bring them. So the importance of the maritime industry to Nigeria’s economy and by extension to Nigeria as a nation cannot be overemphasised.
Apart from the crude oil, international trade, whether you are importing or you are exporting, goes largely through the sea. It’s very small portion that come in through the air when you make a comparative analysis. And for that reason, you cannot joke with such an industry.
Nigeria has a lot of imports which they consume. That’s why even the Nigerian Customs Service is one of Nigeria’s avenues of international revenue in terms of duty collection. These days, you hear Customs hitting trillions as income for the federal government.
So there is no way any reasonable federal government administration can joke with such an industry or sector. So if you give it a dedicated ministry to help coordinate the activities there, streamline things, and ensure seamless operation it’s long overdue. So for me and of course I know for NAGAFF, it’s a welcome development that we have, like already said in various fora that the benefits are endless.
You have mentioned the importance of trade and all that come through the sea, in line with that, what is your view on a national shipping line for Nigeria?
The problem is not having a national carrier or a national shipping line, but it is the ability to manage it, ability to run it. These are not very simple projects. These are highly technical projects that require international partnership and require international standardisation and it is also, let me use the word, it is a kind of business that nobody wants you to succeed. I mean the international community wouldn’t want it to succeed because the Europeans believe it is their business. They don’t even want their people to break into it let alone Africa.
You can see what is happening in the airline business; to grant licenses for maybe Air Peace or any Nigerian airline is difficult. You know, giving license for you to make landings in any UK airport goes with so many frustrations.
It is the same thing when it comes to licensing vessels. They don’t want your flag to fly on ship. So they do everything against it. The shipping business is a merchant business. Even within European countries, it is owned by, not owned, it is run by some group of people, some families. There are some groups of people in Europe who own shipping; you call them the classification society in Europe. They are the ones that determine who owns the vessel, which license to use, which one should sail, which one should not sail. It is not always easy to break into that because every vessel must carry a flag.
To manufacture a vessel takes years. So who has that technical expertise? Even if you have all the money in the world, would they even manufacture for you? And if they do, which flag are you going to fly? With all the conditionalities, the business may not be profitable. And even if you get the cruise is another thing, the expertise to even sail the ship on sea with the entire compass and nautical miles navigating throughout the countries, you know, to move from Nigeria to China to Europe to America, moving freely, you know, making trade. Nobody wants you to have trade balance with them. The Chinese people don’t want you to. They want to export more. So they want you to import more.
So by the time you have all of these, so all the crude oil that we move from Nigeria is carried by their own tanker vessels. If you have yours now you are shorting their businesses. So it’s like that, that’s the major challenge. So we’ve tried it before, but we didn’t succeed because of some of these issues that I’ve mentioned. Majority of the problems are external and our inability to match this competition and the expertise. I’m talking about national versus national. I’m talking about government versus government. Have you heard of the word trade war?
I’m talking about trade war; it’s not the war by machetes and bullets and the throwing grenades, no. It’s trade war, tariff war. I want to be on top. I want my business to flourish more than yours. I want to have that advantage over you because the more foreign exchange you earn, the stronger your economy. Because for you to earn foreign exchange means you are exporting a lot. It’s only when you export that you earn; when you are selling you earn dollars or pounds or whatever but when you import, you need to get money to give. You are buying. Yes, and when you are exporting, you are also growing your economy because you are engaging your populace into industrialisation, into production, into manufacturing. It’s people that will do the manufacturing. That’s why you are exporting.
It’s labour to do it and when there is such labour, it means there will be money flowing into the pockets of your citizens. There will be money in the system; enough money for education, enough money to build roads, enough money to build hospitals, citizens are rich. So they become less criminally minded because they have money. They become less negative thinking because the youth are engaged. So people want to come to your country to work because you are rich and your economy is growing.
So that’s the good thing about exporting.Your industries will be flourishing and when that happens, then who is your market? Where do you sell all of those manufacturing you’ve made? Who do you sell it to? Who becomes your market? It’s the people that are not producing like you. They must be kept down because the West must have Africa as a market.
Have you wondered why you sell crude oil only for you to go back to the person you sold the crude oil to buy the refined oil. Have you wondered why you sell skin and hide, charcoal, cocoa, timber, only for you to go back there to buy chocolates made from cocoa, to buy paper made from timber? These papers are made from wood. There are no milling plants in Nigeria to produce paper. There are no chocolate companies in Nigeria. We have the best of cocoa in the world yet we don’t have chocolate factories, so these and more. That’s where the country is.
Could you comment on the appointment of Kingsley Igwe as the Registrar/CEO of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), which your sister association is contesting?
It’s a question of jealousy. A question of long time, age long politics of you must fall for me to rise. By now we should be happy that the Ministry has finally agreed to what all of us have been clamoring for. All the associations have been clamoring for a professional, a practitioner, a practicing professional to be at the helm of affairs of the CRFFN. It’s all these while what we have been having are people who don’t know about the industry. They got into there as a worker, maybe as a clerk, as a admin officer, and then you become the helmsman and they don’t know jack about the Maritime Industry. And now, God in his infinite mercy has put it in the mind and the heart of the current minister to go that route.
Of course, we have been doing several memos but the problem is that it appears as while we were all fighting and agitating for a professional to be a freight forwarder, there are certain individuals they have in mind. That’s what I think and that’s happening.
And then the Ministry conducts an interview and picks someone that became the best candidate who happens to be the former secretary of NAGAFF and then boom, they start hesitating again. What is the point of hesitation?
They now begin to talk about technicalities; that there was no proper interview, there were no wide conversations. Come on! It is because it is NAGAFF. NAGAFF has always been on the path of knowledge. NAGAFF has always been on the path of professionalism. You know our roles and contributions towards the formation of CRFFN to start with. So they feel threatened that we have always claimed that we own CRFFN, which it is our brain child.
We are now going the route of a practitioner heading the CRFFN. I think what we should be saying is okay, NAGAFF it is your man that is there now. After his tenure, it should be from another association, maybe ANLCA. Then after ANLCA, it should be from another association. There is the way we have been doing the sharing formula, even to the Council, to have members of the Council. We have always shared it; 5-5, 1-1 or something like that. We can still use such formula, and if ANLCA will be open to that. It should not be a problem. The fact that it started with NAGAFF does not mean it will end with NAGAFF. If a NAGAFF member was picked as a practitioner to run it now, it does not mean that NAGAFF will be there forever. His tenure will end one day.
Before then we can discuss that after NAGAFF the headship will to come the next association. We do not have a problem, we have never taken it up because we need that unity, and we need that collaboration and cooperation to take the industry to a greater height. This politics of pulling him down for me to rise has never taken us anywhere and will not take us anywhere.
Let us support Mr. Kingsley Onyekachi Igwe to succeed. He is our colleague. He is a practitioner like all of us. He knows the job. He is sound. He can do it. He is the man at this time that can take CRFFN to a greater height and things around and all our yearnings we will begin to see them come to fruition.
But have you discussed with your city association to broker peace?
There are discussions going on but you know ANLCA with their current divisions. You have to tread cautiously because you talk to this person and it is an issue on the other side. But overall there are discussions going on.