The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council(NSC) Barr. Hassan Bello has been selected as the Nigerian Maritime Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the year 2015 by industry stakeholders in a random survey conducted by Kings Communications Limited, the publishers of Maritime Management Series (MMS) Plus and the organizers of the annual MMS Plus’ Woman of Fortune Hall of Fame.
Hassan Bello emerged as the Best Maritime CEO as a result of the landmark achievements he attained as the helmsman at the NSC in the out-gone year. Under his tutelage, the NSC has been able to increase its basic allocation ratio from the Federal Government from 1 percent to 2 percent.
Hassan has also been able to engage all stakeholders – Customs, Shipping companies, Terminal operators, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), etc, and co-ordinate them from a neutral platform as well as encourage a synergy between these sister agencies. His role in reinitiating the Cargo Tracking Notes and its successful implementation so far with over 6,000 companies already complying cannot be trivialized.
Funds allocated to the NSC may not be as lofty as the NPA or NIMASA, but Hassan Bello has been able to ensure the Council is more organized and better managed when compared to other agencies. This truth was re-echoed by the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi during his recent visit to the Council.
Hassan was first an insider before his appointment as CEO of the Shippers Council in July 2013 and this enhances his understanding of the issues at the Council as well as the stakeholders. As a result the NSC under Hassan’s leadership empowers maritime stakeholders, always ready to be at a round table rather than be at loggerheads with them. He also uses this approach in managing his subordinates at the Council.
He is a first-class administrator who functions as a coach, not a dictator. He is easily accessible to his staff and always engages his managerial team. This transparent administrative skill ensures the existence of cordial official and personal relationships with his management team as well as the rank and file of the organization. He is not only willing to admit when he doesn’t have the answer to a problem but humble enough to figure out where to go or whom to go get the answers from.
Barr. Hassan Bello was appointed as the substantive Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of the NSC in July 2013, after serving in acting capacity for the period of six months. He holds the record of the Council as the first insider to be appointed substantive Chief Executives for over 20 years as against the political gimmick of appointing outsiders as helmsman of the NSC.
Soaked in humility of an usual kind, Bello last December, sent end –of- the- year message from management to all members of NSC staff, thanking them for their dedication and commitment to duty and encouraged them to do more in 2016 to help achieve the collective goal, an action that sparked a surprise in the Council. He walks into different offices of his subordinates and addresses issues of importance and urgency to the Council rather than wait for them to wade through the bureaucracy of civil service and delay results. Always mindful of staff welfare and loathes lies and double speaks associated with the politics of civil service, which is a sore in the system. He has a record of making staff personal problems his.
From the media, he is a comrade who shares their concerns and wish that they do the best. Surprisingly, this is the only known CEO in the industry who seeks criticisms from the media, whether objective or subjective. Even those who had embarked on the adventure of pecuniary journalism with neo-colonial disposition got silenced eventually by Bello’s disarming leadership quality of accommodation that made a staff of NSC retort: “You can follow him blindly into battlefield”. Perhaps, his only known hubris is that he is too kind a man!
