Court orders CBN, 4 banks to pay N5.5bn judgment debt over 48,600 bags of rice Customs seized

*The garnishees are hereby ordered to pay the judgment sum into an interest-yielding account to be maintained by the Chief Registrar of this court as condition for the application for stay to be heard ─Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo of Federal High Court Abuja

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Sequel to the Nigeria Customs Service’s (NCS) seal off of its business premises cum warehouses and subsequent lawsuit against the authorities by Maggpiy Trading TFZE, a Federal High Court in Abuja, FCT, has ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and four other commercial banks in the country to pay N5.5billion judgment debt into an interest yielding account before September 1, 2021.

It was gathered the other affected banks are Fidelity Bank, Access Bank, UBA and Zenith Bank, whose appeal case the court said it would not hear until evidence of payment of the punitive sum.

Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo gave the order as a condition for the hearing of the applications filed by the CBN and four banks for the stay of execution of an order of garnishee absolute earlier made by the court from June 15, 2021, according to report.

Nigeria Customs operatives in a rice warehouse   File Photo for illustration

Justice Ekwo said: “The garnishees are hereby ordered to pay the judgment sum into an interest-yielding account to be maintained by the Chief Registrar of this court as condition for the application for stay to be heard.

“This case is hereby adjourned to 1st September, 2021 for the respective applications,” The banks are listed as garnishees in the suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1165/2020 initiated by a firm, Maggpiy Trading TFZE, to retrieve about N5.5billion (N3.82billion and $4.95million) judgment sum earlier given in its favour by the court in the suit it filed against the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and the Chairman of its Board.

In their applications, the banks are seeking to stay the execution of the garnishee order absolute pending the determination of their appeals.

Report indicates that Maggpiy Trading had sued the NCSB, its Chairman and the National Security Adviser (NSA), claiming that, on March 18, 2017, officials of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) unjustly sealed off its warehouses located within the Tinapa Free Trade Zone and Resort (TFTZR), Calabar, Cross River State.

The company had stated in the suit marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/40/2017 that the warehouses, at the time they were sealed off by men of the NCS, contained 90 containers worth of rice, with each of the containers holding 540 bags of rice.

Maggpiy Trading stated without any provocation and after accepting N53million from it as Stamp Duty, NCS operatives also detained by the road side at Onne, Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, 40 trucks with which it was transporting 317 transit containers of rice to its Tinapa Free Trade Zone and Resort facility, report said.

According to the firm in the suit, its warehouses were eventually unsealed after over four months, and that it was compelled by the defendants to re-export the imported rice to Cotonou, in Benin Republic, July 28, 2017.

The firm noted that it discovered some of the containers had been stolen; incurred heavy costs, and that most of what was left of the consignment had been destroyed.

However, the defendants in the lawsuit had denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the plaintiff (Maggpiy Trading) breached the Federal Government’s fiscal policy on the importation of any physical goods into Nigeria.

They contended that the plaintiff’s action of importing rice into the country “was calculated to undermine the Federal Government’s fiscal policy on food security, which is meant to encourage local production of rice, and the ban on importation of rice through land border.

Nonetheless, the trial court in its judgment July 10, 2019, upheld the plaintiff’s case on the grounds that the NCS and its officials acted outside the law when they knew that the Federal Government’s circular on which they claimed to have acted is not applicable to Free Trade Zone, which are considered as “country within a country.”

Justice Ekwo frowned on the refusal of the defendants to obey his two interlocutory orders made December 15, 2017, and June 27, 2018, respectively for the rice to be sold and the proceeds kept in an interest-yielding account pending the determination to the case in view of the perishable nature of the consignment.

The trial Judge, therefore, proceeded to grant all the plaintiff’s reliefs, but exonerated the 3rd defendant (the NSA), who was found to have played no role in the whole episode.

The Justice made a declaration “that the 1st and 2nd defendants have no power, authority or justification to seal off the plaintiff’s warehouses located at the Tinapa Free Trade Zone, Calabar, Cross River State or to seize, detain or order the seizure or detention of the plaintiff’s containers of rice lawfully imported through the Onne Sea Port for conveyance to the Calabar Free Trade Zone.”

He also made “a declaration that the seizure or detention by the 1st and 2nd defendants of 317 transit containers belonging to the plaintiff at Onne Sea Port, Rivers State and the order for their re-exportation is illegal, unlawful and unjustified,” report stated.

Justice Ekwo further declared “that the sealing off by the 1st and 2nd defendants of the plaintiff’s warehouses at Tinapa Free Trade Zone, Calabar containing 90 containers worth of rice escorted to the said warehouse by the Nigerian Customs, and over which duties were duly paid by the plaintiff is illegal, unlawful and unjustified.

The trial Judge granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining the 1st and 2nd defendants from further unlawfully interfering with the lawful business transactions of the Plaintiff within the Tinapa Free Trade Zone.

The judge awarded both special and general damages against the 1st and 2nd defendants totalling N3,832,779,450.00 and $4,958,950.

He ordered that the monetary part of the judgment shall attract interest “at the prevailing Monetary Policy Rate (Central Bank rate) from date of judgment until judgment sums are fully liquidated.”

A three-man panel of Justices Emmanuel Agim, Peter Ige and Yargata Nimpar of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, subsequently upheld the judgment in its decision August 20, 2020, and dismissed the appeal, marked: CA/A/819/2019 filed by the Nigerian Customs Service Board (NCSB) and its Chairman.

The appellate court, in dismissing the appeal, held that the Federal High Court was in order when it held in favour of the plaintiff, Maggpiy Trading TFZE, in the judgment given by Justice Ekwo July 10, 2019, in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/40/2017, report stated.

Justices Emmanuel Agim, Peter Ige and Yargata Nimpar (of the Court of Appeal) were unanimous in holding that the appellants (NCSB and its Chairman) failed to fault the judgment by Justice Ekwo.

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