Stakeholders in the maritime industry under the aegis of Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition (SNFFIEC) have described as unfortunate the call in some quarters that the sacked agencies at the ports, especially the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) be returned back by the government.

The group said it was hard to believe that those who were in the forefront of the call for the sack of these agencies did a turn-around only to ask that the agencies be brought back, at the time that majority of Nigerians, particularly ports users, were hailing the sack move.

Speaking to The Tide in Port Harcourt, a member of the group, Nnam Kojo, on Monday said the allegation that some people may have been sponsored to castigate the effort being taken by the government to sensitise the ports may not be unfounded especially when viewed against the background that some people have been going round calling for the return of the sacked agencies even while it was agreed by the same people that those agencies were causing more harm than good to cargo clearing process at the ports.

According to him, “it is difficult to understand why some people will go on air and be castigating the efforts of the government to clean the ports.

When in the month of October last year the Co-ordinating Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, visited the ports with the Economic Team and Presidential team on Ports Reform, all the stakeholders were together with the team.

But none of these people who are going about now on television and radio talking, could say any thing in that direction, rather, it was only Save Nigeria Freight Forwarders, Importers and Exporters Coalition that could make contributions. The rest shied away because they are all committed,” he said.