B’Odogwu glitches over, say conference participants

By Enyeribe Anyanwu

Maritime stakeholders have commended the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for promptly and effectively handling the glitches that marred the operation of the B’Odogwu clearance platform some months ago. The glitches caused severe losses to both government and individuals.

Speaking at a one-day conference organized by Hynek Media in collaboration with Media Anti-Corruption Initiatives with the theme: “The Impact of the B’Odogwu Digital Platform on Trade Facilitation and Women Contributions to the Maritime Sector: Challenges in the new Marine and Blue Economy”, the Founder of the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam, said the B’Odogwu platform has come to stay.

“We need to work with it. Some months ago, there were glitches, but now everything has eased off, and things are working smoothly,” he said.  

Dr. Aniebonam who spoke through the Publicity Secretary of NAGAFF, Dr. C.C Iroegbunam, counseled everyone to come on-board, urging anyone having problems with the B’Odogwu platform to upgrade his or her computer system.

He said the platform has taken the maritime sector to a new level by enabling smarter business operations.

On the contributions of women in the sector, Dr. Aniebonam, said women have overtime upgraded from just trading that brought some of them to the ports, to becoming big operators in serious aspects of maritime.

Urging more women to come on board, he said women can set up shops for capturing entries or engage in ship chandelling or in many other business opportunities in the industry.

Also speaking at the event, the President, Women in Maritime Africa (WIMA) Mrs. Rollens McFoy, commended the B’Odogwu initiative, which she said, is meant to make business easier, curb corruption, enhance automation, boost compliance, streamline processes and improve trade efficiency.

She further said that the platform is also meant to reduce physical contact, thereby eliminating human elements responsible for delays and corruption in the clearance system.  

The WIMA President observed that B’Odogwu turned one year in October, but still has not eliminated frictions and human elements in the system. She said with proper clearing benchmarks for clearing goods, especially vehicles, there should be no need for FOU, area monitoring and multiple customs checks on the roads. She regretted the absence of Customs at the event to answer some pressing questions.

On women’s contributions to the maritime sector, Mrs. McFoy spoke on the hindrances that women face in the blue economy. These include: political will, gender-based violence, workplace discrimination, funding etc. She urged women to be more creative and resilient in the face of difficulties or oppositions.

She observed that there is lack of professional recognition of women in Nigeria, saying that there is no data on professional women in various sectors of the economy, except in maritime where the data shows 2% participation.

She maintained that the era of putting women by the side is gone, urging all not to put barriers on women in any area of human endeavor.

All the participants at the event agreed that the B’Odogwu platform has succeeded, saying it should be accepted as a good clearance tool. They, however, urged customs to do better in post-clearance activities, insisting that the B’Odogwu platform should be able to eliminate the need for customs units on the roads.