The Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria said on Tuesday it had introduced Freight Forwarding as a course in eight tertiary institutions in the country.
The Registrar of the council, Mike Jukwe, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.
Jukwe said that the CRFFN Act 16 of 2007 gave the council the powers to regulate and control the practice of freight forwarding.
He said: “Before the coming to being of CRFFN, there was no formal education in this sector.
“And CRFFN has already got the world body’s accreditation to run Diploma in Freight Forwarding and Higher Diploma in Freight Forwarding and Supply Chain Management for the first time in this country and these had been introduced.
“We started it this year.
“There are institutions that are running it.
“The leaderships of these institutions are going to meet with us here on Friday.
“Same as with the leadership of the associations.
“From each of the six geopolitical zones, we took one institution and because the bulk is in Lagos, we have four more institutions in Lagos.
“In the South West, we have Redeemers University, which is running the programmes already.
“We have NITT, Zaria for the North West.
“For the North East, we have the Federal University of Technology in Yola.
“In the South East, we have the Federal University of Technology, Owerri.
“In the North Central, we have the Benue State University.
“And in the South-South, we have the Maritime Academy, Oron, Akwa Ibom State, which is also an agency in the same ministry.
“Then we have two other institutions in Lagos, Certified Institute of Shipping and so on.”
Jukwee said that the Federal Ministry of Transport was putting in place all necessary measures to constitute the Governing Council of the CRFFN.
Jukwe said that touting at the Lagos ports had drastically reduced, adding that the Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, had proposed to set up an inter-agency collaboration to check such activity at the ports.