The atmosphere at the headquarters of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) is electric as the Seme chapter election is postponed for the fourth time.
Suspecting foul play, the immediate chairman of the chapter and contestant in the election, Mr. Ekene Ajunwa alleged that the some national executive members wanted to impose a candidate on the members which he described as unconstitutional.
Speaking with journalists last week at the national headquarters of the association in Lagos, Ajunwa alleged that his co-contestant in the election had never been a registered member of the chapter neither was he a financial member and had never been seen in any of their meetings before.
He also said that some members who had voted in previous elections were suspected to be recruited to vote in the election that was earlier slated for Thursday, last week.
Expressing his fear, Ajunwa said, “I am pleading with NECOM and the world in general, in previous elections, nobody from Apapa voted for Tin can and nobody from Airport voted for Apapa, so what I am asking from the NAGAFF NECOM is to make sure that voters and contestants should be from the Seme border chapter.
“If you are conducting elections with borrowed members, it means that we are recycling and it is not going to help NAGAFF as an association,” he added.
When contacted, the chairman of NAGAFF Electoral Commission (NECOM), Mr. Okey Nerus said that such allegations were unfounded, adding that the association had a credibility in terms of elections and was not ready to derail from its standard of doing things.
The NECOM chairman who said the postponement was at the instance of the candidates, added that it took intervention of great men of the association before the postponement request was granted.
However, he said the commission would look critically at the list of electorates that will be presented and while not denying the fact that some members actually wanted to cross over from one Apapa chapter to Seme.
Asked why the crossing over at the time of the election and not before or after, he said anyone could decide to move his trade to any part he deems fit at any time but added that it was unfortunate that the crossing over is coming at the period of the election.
Meanwhile, the said election has been postponed by one week and it has been rescheduled to take place on Thursday, this week.
Speaking with MMS Plus Weekly, Nerus said, “To transfer to another chapter, you must meet some criteria and NECOM is insisting that all of these criteria must be met, the rules on ground must be followed to the letter because the election in Seme must not generate any heat.”
“NAGAFF is a family and even though there are speculation that some members who are domiciled in one or two chapters want to transfer their membership to another chapter because of their change of business, I want to disabuse our minds that it was just a coincidence that people want to transfer during election.”
