A former chairman of the Apapa Chapter of ANCLA Mr Chiedu Mbube has described the crisis in the association to leadership struggle.
He said “I just believe that the best thing for me is to keep quiet and leave them and more so after my tenure, as the Apapa Chairman, there are some people believe that whenever they see me around, they start feel threatened.
To the glory of God I did my best when I was the chairman and our boys like me. Whenever anything is going wrong, they come to me and seek for solution. I used to tell that I’m no more there. Anybody you feel like following, go ahead and follow him. It got to a time, I don’t feel safe again whenever I’m with them. That was why I decided to redirect my focus.
The very day Tony Iju won the election as the National President, I congratulated him and I believe that everybody has its time. Since he has won the election he should be allow to reign. The only thing I have is to support him. But when I now noticed what was going on among them there especially the BOT, and inside the BOT, majority of them are my friends.
I have tried to meet one or two of them, to sound their opinions, they kept on talking about Tony. He is doing this he is doing that. But one thing I noticed is that most of them in that BOT don’t like Henry Njoku. And because and because Tony Nwabunike had aligned himself with Henry Njoku, they decided to fight him.
The genesis of the crisis is the struggle about who becomes the chairman of the BOT. Before Tony Nwabunike became the National President the Bot have their board which elected Mustapha chairman. So when Tony now came in, they wanted to change and it becomes a problem. So many of them keep saying they are not comfortable with Henry Njoku to come and take over again as the chairman of the Board of Trustee. Then Tony now saw what was going on decided to align with Henry Njoku. They started fighting. When I now look at the whole thing, I said these people, I don’t know what their problem is. I have rejected many offer to come into committee and ANCL but I refused because of the crisis in the association. One thing I keep glory to God for once making me chairman of ANCLA.
I don’t blame Tony Nwabunike for what he has done because if he is there alone, they will rubbish him.
But everybody knows that Henry Njoku is a big force in ANCLA. I don’t its personal because you have to deal with people that will protect you.
Because of the crisis in ANCLA, Nwabunike is not settled because of the crisis. He needs to be given breathing space to stablised.
You cannot compare Nwabunike with Shittu. Shittu is a good administrator he knows everything about ANCLA when to play hot or when to play cool. But Tony has many enemies around him.
His style of leadership is not accepted by many members.