Court order CBN to pay N7.5bn to Maggpiy Trading

ABUJA: The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, on Friday the 9th of April, 2022, affirmed the garnishee order absolute made by Hon Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja mandating the Central Bank of Nigeria to pay to Maggiy Trading the judgment sum of about 7.5 Billion naira from the funds standing to the credit of the Nigerian Customs Service in its custody . While dismissing CBN’s appeal in Appeal No: CA/ABJ/CV/399/2021 , the Court of Appeal per Hon Justice Haruna Simon Tsamani agreed with the lawyer to Maggpiy Trading EDIDIONG USUNGURUA that CBN’s appeal lacked merit and awarded cost in the sum of N300,000 against CBN in favour of. Maggpiy Trading .

CBN had approached the court seeking to set aside the order absolute claiming that it is a public officer and the consent of the Attorney General of the Federation ought to have been sought and granted before the institution of the proceedings .
EDIDIONG USUNGURUA argued that based on the Supreme Court decision in INTERSTELLAR v CBN, the CBN is not a public officer and accordingly does not come within the contemplation of section 84 of the Sheriff and Civil process Act, an argument the court of Appeal agreed with. The court further held that Nigerian Customs Service is a privy of the Customs Service Board and collects customs and excise on its behalf which are domiciled at CBN pursuant to the TSA policy of the FGN.

It will be recalled 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.

It 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.

The firm added that, without any provocation and after accepting N53M from it as stamp duties, men of the NCS 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.

Maggpiy Trading company stated that 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, Benin Republic on July 28, 2017.

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

The defendants however 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 argued 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.

The trial court, in its judgment given on 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, who was the trial judge, frowned at the refusal of the defendants to obey his two interlocutory orders made on December 15, 2017 and June 27, 2018 for the rice to be sold and the proceed kept in an interest yielding accounts pending the determination to the case in view of the perishable nature of the consignment.

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 judge 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.”

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

Justices Emmanuel Agim( now of the Supreme Court) , 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.