Court dismisses Customs appeal, orders release of ₦200m worth of rice, millet
The Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna has ordered the Nigeria Customs Service to release 613 bags of foreign rice, alongside 80 bags of millet worth about ₦200m and a truck impounded from a 37 year-old businessman, Suleiman Mohammed on Kaduna-Zaria Expressway.
The Court gave the order in a judgment following an appeal against the judgment of the Federal High Court, Kaduna, which discharged and acquitted Suleiman Mohammed of a two-count charge on importation of foreign goods.
In the judgment delivered by Justice Ntong Ntong, the three-member justices of the appellate Court held that “Kaduna-Zaria Expressway is not a land border and that the Nigeria Customs Service has no right to arrest Suleiman Mohammed on 14th June, 2019 and confiscate his goods on the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway which is outside the contemplation or application of the ban on importation of foreign rice.”
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The Court also held that the Nigeria Customs Service “has no right to patrol the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway or any highway for the sole purpose of arresting and confiscating any foreign rice on those highways or expressways because they are not land borders.”
Justice Ntong said he has “taken time to read the Record of Appeal, especially the judgment of the Trial Court, briefs of parties, statutes and exhibits and agreed with the trial Court that Kaduna-Zaria Expressway is not a “land border” as stipulated by the law.”
The Court further held that “the defendant was merely a purchaser of rice and millet at the Central Market, Gusau in Zamfara State with a receipt of purchase and not an importer and that the Nigeria Customs Service ought to have arrested the importer and not a mere purchaser from the open market.”
Justice Ntong wondered how “a fowl leaves to attack who killed it, to pursue who is defeathering it, an Annang-African Idiom meaning that the Appellant ought not to shut its eyes away from the importer and be chasing petty traders and consumers who buy from the open market”.
The Court further held that after all contraband goods always pass through the borders which are the beats of the Appellant.
The Court of Appeal also lambasted officials of the Nigerian Customs Service for carrying out “a shoddy investigation in the comfort of their office” holding that “where it has become difficult or impossible for them to return the confiscated rice, millet and the truck, the Nigeria Customs Service Board shall pay to the Respondent, a sum of money equivalent to the current price or cost of the confiscated items.”
In dismissing the appeal as lacking in merit, Justice Ntong ordered the Nigeria Customs Service Board to obey and comply with the orders of the Courts forthwith and honourably throw in the towel as the appeal is simply a hoax, a fluke, unmeritorious and bereft of any legal basis.
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