The Nigeria Customs Service Board has applied to the Federal High Court in Lagos for a forfeiture order of illegally imported goods valued at N50.151million...
The goods which were intercepted between April and June this year include fairly used clothes, shoes, bags, bed sheets, breakable plates; 7,163 bags of foreign parboiled rice, and 147 Jerry cans of vegetable oil.
There are also seven vehicles seized during the period, which values were 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-part application seeking a forfeiture order on the goods.
Bodinga told the judge that since the goods were seized their owners had refused to show up to claim them, having realized the severity of the punishment for their offense.
He said that 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 (IDPs) camps in the North East zone.
In a 15-paragraph affidavit which he personally deposed to, Bodinga said that 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 goods or the items they brought into the country were prohibited by law.
Justice Anka adjourned the case till August 17 for ruling.
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