Dr Aniebonam Bags ‘Freight Forwarder General Of Nigeria’ Award from MAJAN
By Jerry Aguigbo
The founder, National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (Nagaff), Spiritual Leader and founder, New Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP), Dr Boniface Okechukwu Aniebonam was Thursday bestowed with the most prestigious Award of ” Freight Forwarder General of Nigeria” by the Maritime Journalists’Association of Nigeria (MAJAN), at the commissioning of their new Secreteriat at Calcutta Crescent Apapa-Lagos.
President of MAJAN, Mr Ray Ugochukwu before presenting this award, said Dr Aniebonam has given a lot to the Nigerian Maritime industry and his contributions in trying to reposition and enthrone international best practice in the way freight forwarding business is done in Nigeria speaks volumes.
Continuing, Ugochukwu said Aniebonam did not stop at founding one of the most vibrant industry Association cum pressure group (Nagaff), he was also pivotal in the establishment of the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding Practice in Nigeria (CRFFN). His foray into politics which saw to his founding the NNPP was solely to fight from the inside. Dr Aniebonam he said, has a cult following in the Maritime industry and beyond, because he has empowered thousands of youths to become successful in freight forwarding business today. ” His benevolence to MAJAN knows no bounds, we do not even know how to express our gratitude to him. This are the salient reasons for bestowing this honour on him,” Ugochukwu said.
Responding, Dr Boniface Aniebonam congratulated MAJAN for this epoch making achievement and thanked the Association and its leadership for giving him this Award.
Dr Aniebonam charged Journalists not to dwell so much on run off the mill stories, investigative journalism he said, is the key to the success of every journalist.
“Journalists must earn their Independence through investigative journalism, that is the key to liberating yourself to become successful, you have a duty to report the port and present material evidence in the course of that job. People should make judgement from whatever you have written, presenting facts as back up evidence,” Aniebonam advised.
All hands he said, must be on deck to stop Nigeria from sinking, ” our country is sinking and we must play our own role to stop it from sinking. Just as I have spoken, all of us must wake up to our responsibilities; he who goes to equity must do that with clean hands, the freight forwarder must abide by the laws of the land to also find justice. If you contravene the law, you should be ready to face the music. Do not complain about the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Strike force and others if you are not doing what is right in the eyes of the law, you must first of all comply, before going to equity the NDLEA must also do their job by educating and orientating the freight Forwarders of the dangers of drug use and how to identify the different types of illicit drugs when sighted, we cannot run away from it,” he charged.
Furthermore, he said the CRFFN must be properly modelled to discharge it’s responsibility to freight Forwarders for all to benefit “and Journalists must ensure that this is done by reporting facts, because if this is done the benefits will also come down to them in the form of capacity building and other forms of training,” Dr Aniebonam said.
Also speaking at the event, the National Secretary of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Alh. Babatunde Abdulazeez Mukaila said it’s important to have a traceable place of doing business and this will further boost stakeholders confidence in the Association. “MAJAN is strategically located and this separates you from the others,” he said.
This epoch making event was graced by the who is who in the Maritime industry.