The Nigeria Customs Service has applied to the Federal High Court in Lagos, seeking a forfeiture order on various illegally imported goods valued at N50,151,606.
The goods, said to have been intercepted between April and June, 2017, include loads of fairly-used clothes, shoes, bags, bed sheets, breakable plates; 7,163 bags of foreign parboiled rice, and 147 jerry cans of vegetable oil.
Apart from these, the customs service also seeks a forfeiture order on seven vehicles, also intercepted between April and June, which values were, however, not stated.
The Assistant Legal Adviser of the Nigeria Customs Service Board, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, Ikeja, Mr. Shehu Bodinga, appeared before Justice Abdulaziz Anka on Monday with an ex parte application seeking a forfeiture order on the goods and the vehicles.
Bodinga told the judge that since the goods were intercepted and seized, their owners had absconded and refused to show up to claim them, having realised the severity of the punishment for their offence.
He said the Customs had received a directive from the Presidency that part of the seized items should be distributed to victims of Boko Haram insurgency living in the Internally Displaced Persons camp in the North-East.
In a 15-paragraph which he personally deposed to, Bodinga said the goods were imported into the country in breach of Section 46(c) of the Customs and Management Act.
According to him, in some cases, the importers and their privies attempted to evade duty on the imported goods or the items they brought into the country were prohibited by law.
He said, “Apart from acts of fraudulent evasion of duty, some of the defaulters brought in outright unlawful and prohibited items, which are so classified by the Customs laws and regulations.
“I verily believe that because of the severity of the punishment and sanction attached to the offences, the defaulters, along with their collaborators, have refused and or failed to come forward to claim the goods from the Nigeria Customs Service, thereby, abandoning same and same seized.”
The lawyer said there was an urgent need to order the forfeiture of the goods because some of them were perishable.
“In order to prevent complete deterioration of the said goods and total loss of revenue to the Nigeria Customs Service, the board now intends to sell the goods either by way of auction, allocation or by any other procedure,” Bodinga added.
Having heard the lawyer out, Justice Anka adjourned till August 17 for ruling.
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