Ugwuanyi’s Judicial Victory Well Deserved, Says Group

Vehicle Duty

Meanwhile, the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) and the Shippers’ Association, Lagos State, have disagreed over the one-month grace period given by the customs concerning payment of duty on vehicles.

Both bodies, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), expressed diverse views in separate interviews with newsmen yesterday in Lagos.

The National President of ANLCA, Mr Olayiwola Shittu, advised the customs to make the deadline for duty payment on vehicles an open-ended operation, saying the policy would check smuggling.

The President, Shippers Association Lagos State, Mr. Jonathan Nicol, described the customs’ policy on vehicle duty as outdated and not in conformity with the current situation in world trade.

Shittu said such a policy should be extended or be an open-ended operation so that the duty on some vehicles that passed through customs and not properly cleared, would be paid.

The customs agent said if customs continued, vehicles owners would be forced to pay duties on those vehicles that were not cleared but found their ways into the country.

He said the new policy by customs would discourage smuggling activities along the border areas.

Nicol described the policy as “outdated”, saying that such a policy did not conform with the current trends in world trade.

“Customs should go back to the drawing board if smugglers beat their network,’’ he said.

He said that there was no vehicle that passed through the borderline without paying duty, whether official or non-official.

The Chairman of ANLCA, Seme Border, Mr. Bisiriyu Lasisi-Danu, however, commended the efforts of customs in issuing an ultimatum for payment of duties on vehicles to avoid seizures.

“The Comptroller-General of Customs says if anyone has a car and such a person knows he has not paid duty, such person should visit customs zonal offices and make duty payment.

“If any car user did not pay duty on his car, customs would go after the owner and seize the car for not paying duty.

“I have told some of my friends whose vehicles have been impounded one way or the other, to go and pay.

“Those affected should go to Customs Zonal Offices to raise duty and the person will be free to move around with the car,” Lasisi-Danu said.

He said that customs was on the right track. The ANLCA chief said government would soon link Vehicle Identification Number with local government, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and customs for easy identification.

A maritime lawyer, Mr. Tino Bouro, said: “Customs is a statutory body that must act within the law.’’

Bouro said: “If anybody does not comply with customs directive on duty of vehicle, such a person would face the consequence.’’

The Customs Public Relations Officer, Zone `A`, Mr Ephraim Haruna, said that one of the automobile associations sought the support of customs to create a platform for payment of duties.

Haruna said that the association wanted to ensure that smuggled vehicles did not escape duty payment.

According to him, this is why customs gave a month’s grace to enable all vehicle owners who had yet to pay duty, to do so.

“Many car owners who have not paid duty have been calling our zonal office and some had been calling on phone that they want Sunday Okobi

A civil society organisation, Coalition of Civil Society and Media Executives for Policy Stability (COCMEP), has described as sagacious and true reflection of the wishes of Enugu State people and the ruling party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the recent Court of Appeal judgment re-affirming the validity of the state Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s nomination by the state chapter of PDP.

The Executive Director of COCMEP, Innocent Okadigbo, while hailing the judgment in a news chat with journalists in Abuja recently, urged the governor’s challenger and the plaintiff in the case, Senator Aloy Eze, to embrace the spirit of political sportsmanship and accept the court verdict in good faith.

Ugwuanyi emerged as the PDP gubernatorial candidate for 2015 governorship election “in a transparent and peaceful primary election conducted by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and monitored by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“Senator Eze boycotted the party primaries and organised a kangaroo primary election which was not recognised by both the party’s NEC and INEC. He lost the case at the Federal High Court which was recently re-affirmed by the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal held that Eze had no locus to challenge the governor’s primary election and that the court lack the jurisdiction to entertain it since the petitioner did not participate in the said primary election.”

COCMEP Co-coordinator remarked that Ugwuanyi’s hands are wide open for prominent sons and daughters of the state like Eze to join hand with the “workaholic governor to move the state forward.”

Okadigbo advised Eze to stop wasting his time and money on frivolous litigation where he said he lacks the locus and which the court does not have the jurisdiction to entertain.

The social and right activist agreed with the Court of Appeal judgment, maintaining that in judicial matter, “you cannot reprobate and approbate at the same time and judicial matter is different from ‘Obollo Afor’ market where you reject an orange in the morning and later buys the same rejected orange the next day.”

According to Okadigbo, “Senator Eze cannot boycott a primary election and later lay claim to its outcome. That is very strange in law. Such practice can only be obtained in ‘Obollo Afor’ or ‘9th mile’ market and certainly not in the law court.”