We drive local maritime industry, freight forwarders seek attention from new NIMASA DG
Samson Echenim is business a.m. correspondent providing coverage for maritime, aviation, travels and hospitality. A former business correspondent at the Punch and Leadership newspapers, he has a vast experience in business reporting. Samson can be reached on samhapp2000@yahoo.com and +2348037363024
Every past director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) may not have seen a need to integrate freight forwarders into its agenda.
As a new director general takes over at the apex maritime regulating agency, freight forwarders are seeking a change from NIMASA, suggesting a need to extend its frontiers beyond its traditional regulatory oversight to deepening local maritime capacity in the area of freight forwarding.
Boniface Aniebonam, founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) Dr Boniface on Thursday, charged Bashir Jamoh, the new director-general of NIMASA to collaborate with the body regulating freight forwarders in Nigeria, the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN) for the purpose of expanding indigenous maritime capacity.
Aniebonam alleged that the past chief executives of NIMASA had never added any value to the relevance and growth of freight forwarding in Nigeria.
He maintained in a widely circulated message that freight forwarding practitioners remained the most critical element involved in the actualisation and realisation of shipping business as a derived demand in any nation.
Aniebonam said, “The appointment of Jamoh as DG of NIMASA is neither here nor there in the eyes of young freight forwarders of Nigeria under the control and regulation of CRFFN. This is because his predecessors never added any value to the relevance and growth of freight forwarding profession in Nigeria. Freight forwarding practitioners are the most critical element involved in the actualisation and realisation of shipping business as a derived demand.
“However, we in NAGAFF are looking forward to a responsible partnership between CRFFN and NIMASA in this new dispensation of change of leadership. We in NAGAFF do congratulate Dr Bashir Jamoh as he takes responsibility and together we shall make Nigeria and Maritime business great once again.”