Kenneth Ehigiator
Members of Association of Nigeria License Customs Agents, ANLCA, and I-Cube West African Company are at daggers drawn  over the access gate to Murtala Muhammed International Airport Lagos.
I-Cube is the company managing the access gate as a concessionaire for the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN. The agents accused the company of not honouring the agreement reached with them over usage of the gate.

Reacting to the recent ugly incident between the ANLCA members and some I- Cube officials over collection of tolls that nearly marred the operations of the parties in a press release, Public Relations

Officer of ANLCA, Sir Ambrose Eke, said there was an agreement not to collect toll from certain categories of workers at the airport. According to him, the agreement not to collect access tolls from ANLCA members was reached at a stakeholders meeting between I-Cube and airport workers and other users.

He lamented that the company was not fulfilling its own side of the bargain, stressing that the continous harassment of their members by agents of the company amounted to a violation of the understanding between both parties. He explained that trouble started when a group of ANLCA members numbering hundreds, conveying the body of their colleague who dropped dead on duty for burial, were prevented from using the access gate.
Eke said based on the stakeholders agreement with I-Cube, his members refused to pay and forced their way through. He argued that as stakeholders, they had been paying the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria over one million naira on cargo port charge and stakeholders concession fee of over N30 million, only to be denied access to their offices. Eke lamented that FAAN had never provided convenient facilities such as toilets, even as they carry out their businesses under the scotching sun after the demolition of their administrative building few years ago.

“FAAN collects from us about N 1.3 billion on cargo port charge and collects N30m concession fee.  To now get access to where we work, they are asking us to pay money again. “That is what the agents are complaining; FAAN did not provide toilet facilities nor shelter for us. We are there in the rain and under the sun,” he lamented.