The Kaduna division of the Court of Appeal has ruled that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has no constitutional right to confiscate imported rice in open markets.

The court gave the order while delivering judgement in an appeal filed by the Customs Service against the judgement of the Federal High Court, Kaduna, which discharged and acquitted one Suleiman Mohammed of a two-count charge on the importation of foreign goods.

In the judgement delivered by the three-member panel led by Justice Ntong Ntong, the court also ordered the Nigeria Customs to release 613 bags of foreign rice, alongside 80 bags of millet worth about N200 million and a truck impounded from the respondent in the appeal, Suleiman Mohammed, a 37-year-old businessman, on the Kaduna-Zaria Expressway.

In the judgment, the 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 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.”

Justice Ntong said he had “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 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 the Nigeria Customs Service ought to have arrested the importer and not a mere purchaser from the open market.”

The judge wondered how a fowl, instead of attacking the person who killed it, pursues 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 three man-panel further held that, after all, contraband goods pass through the borders, the main beats of customs.

The Court of Appeal also chided 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.”

In dismissing the appeal, Justice Ntong Ntong ordered the Nigeria Customs Service to obey and comply with the orders of the Court forthwith.

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