Customs, NCS
Court bars Customs from confiscating foreign rice in open markets
The Court of Appeal in Kaduna has told the Nigeria Customs Service not to confiscate foreign rice in open markets, as they have powers to do so.
A judgement by the Court of Appeal, in a judgement on Wednesday, in an appeal discharged and acquitted one Suleiman Mohammed of a two-count charge on the importation of foreign goods. The judgement reversed the judgement of the Federal High Court, Kaduna.
The presiding judge, Justice Ntong Ntong, who led a three-member panel of justices of the Court if Appeal, ordered the Nigeria Customs Service to release 613 bags of foreign rice, alongside 80 bags of millet worth about N200 million, and a truck impounded from Suleiman Mohammed, a 37-year-old businessman, on the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway.
According to the court, “Kaduna-Zaria Expressway is not a land border and that the Nigeria Customs Service has no right to arrest Suleiman Mohammed on June 14, 2019, and confiscate his goods on the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway, which is outside the contemplation or application of the ban on the importation of foreign rice.”
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.”
The court said it has “taken time to read the record of appeal, especially the judgement of the trial court, briefs of parties, statutes, and exhibits, and agreed with the trial court that the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway is not a ‘land border’ as stipulated by the law.
“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 asked how one would attack a fowl, instead of attacking the person who killed it, explaining that pursuing the person who is de-feathering it, an Annang idiom, which suggests that the appellant ought not to shut its eyes against importers and instead chase petty traders and consumers who buy in the open market.
The court held that, after all, contraband goods pass through the borders, the main beats of customs.
The Court of Appeal also scolded officials of the Nigeria 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 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.”
Justice Ntong Ntong ordered the Nigeria Customs Service to obey and comply with the orders of the Court forthwith.