Petroleum marketers operating at the Idiroko Ipokia axis in Lagos have called for the arrest of the comptroller general of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), for flouting of judgement of the Federal High Court (FHC), Abeokuta, over the arrest and auctioning of 24 petrol-laden tanker trucks as scrap.
LEADERSHIP reports that Justice Shittu Abubakar, of the Federal High Court, Abeokuta, had on 9th August, 2022, ordered the Customs service to return the 24 tanker trucks illegally impounded from the petroleum marketers with its full content.
However, rather than obey the judgement and return the trucks to the owners, the Service auctioned the trucks with all its content.
Speaking on behalf of the petroleum marketers at their secretariat, yesterday, legal representative of the Idiroko-Ipokia Area Petroleum Dealers & Marketers Association, George Oyeniyi, said the 24 trucks and their content were valued at N1.56billion.
According to him, the marketers were demanding enforcement of the judgement delivered by Justice Shittu Abubakar, and the arrest of the Customs CG for flouting the judgement of a court of competent jurisdiction.
He stated further that the Service sold the impounded petrol-laden trucks even after the court had delivered its judgement.
“Sometimes in 2019, that was around 9th of November, petroleum dealers and marketers woke up to the news that the Nigeria Customs Service had issued a circular suspending the supply of petroleum products from within 20 kilometres to the border. However, most of the petroleum marketers already had petroleum products that had been booked days before the day of the Customs circular in their various petroleum stations. Some of these marketers already had petroleum products in their various tankers right inside their filling stations, about to be discharged into their underground storage facilities in the filling stations.
“So due to this confusing situation, the Customs Area Controller of Idiroko Customs Command at that time, Controller Micheal Agbara, called petroleum marketers to a meeting where he gave them a four days’ grace period to dispose of all the petroleum products in their various filling stations before enforcement of that circular will begin.”
“However, two days after that circular, officials of the Nigeria Customs Service from Ikeja, backed by military men, raided all the filling stations in Idiroko in the dead of the night, towing away fully laden petroleum tankers to the military baracks at Owode. The total number of fully laden petroleum tankers moved away to the military baracks in Owode was 19 while another five fully laden petroleum tankers were towed to the Customs formation here in Idiroko,” he said.
The Customs officials led by one ACG Amajan, he said, started looking for buyers for the petroleum products, adding that,p it was after the petroleum marketers discovered that the Customs were about selling off the petroleum products and auctioning off the trucks that they contacted him and a case was instituted in court.
“An application for an injunction stopping Customs from tampering with the petroleum tankers and their content was then filed in court, and the judge granted an interrocutory injunction; that was in July 2020. While the case was still in court, the trucks detained inside the military baracks in Owode were moved to Ikorodu were they were auctioned.
“The judge presiding over the case has given a judgement that all the 24 petroleum tankers should be returned to the owners. The judge also granted the marketers a N20 million damages against Customs and N2 million as cost of prosecuting the case. This judgement was delivered on the 9th of August, 2022. However, despite the court judgement, the Customs did not appeal within 90 days and has not complied with the order of Court. We have filed Form 48 notifying the CG of Customs of the Court judgement and will be filing Form 49 on the NCS very soon,” he stated.
Also speaking, the leader of the petroleum marketers whose tankers were impounded and auctioned, Lukmon Jamiu, corroborated that when the Service issued a circular stopping tankers from discharging petroleum products 20km to the border points, the former Customs Area Controllers (CAC), Idiroko command, Michael Agbara, gave marketers four days to comply with the directive.
Jamiu, the managing director of Mayuf Oil and Gas, however, said the following day after the Customs CAC gave the order, the Operation border drill invaded their various filling stations and impounded already parked trucks.
“When they came, they destroyed everywhere, they forcefully removed the lock and towed away the trucks from our filing stations. We were still given four days to sell off our stock by the Idiroko command and the following day, they came to take away our products.
“Each of the truck is valued at N50 million and the products inside them were worth N15 million. Our businesses have been crippled, we need the enforcement of this judgement so that we can have our lives and businesses back,” he said.
On its part, the managing director, Amlad Petroleum, Abdul-lateef Hameed, said his truck was impounded at a filling station at Owode, Ogun State, after it developed fault and was being repaired.
According to him, the filling station in which his tanker was impounded was outside the 20km radius stipulated in the circular by the Service.
“My tanker was arrested outside the 20km radius of the Customs CG’s directive. They auctioned the 45,000 litres in the truck and towed the truck to Idiroko command,” he said.
