There seems to be a growing controversy between the Nigeria Customs Service and Idiroko Ipokia Area Petroleum Dealers and Marketers Association over the whereabouts of 29 tankers loaded with Petroleum Motor Spirit.
Addressing journalists recently in Idiroko, the association accused the service of allegedly auctioning the trucks despite a court order restraining the service from carrying out the act.
It will be recalled that the Federal High Court Abeokuta, presided over by Justice Shitty Abubakar, had on August 9, 2022, ordered the service to return 24 tanker trucks illegally impounded from the petroleum marketers back with their full content.
The group, however, alleged that the service rather than obey the judgement and return the trucks to the owners, it auctioned the trucks with the contents.
Speaking on behalf of the group, the legal adviser to the group, George Oyeniyi, said that the 24 trucks and their content were valued at N1.56bn.
He said that each of truck is valued at N50m while the content was valued at N15m per truck.
He accused the service of selling the impounded petroleum-laden trucks even after the court had delivered its judgement.
He said, “Sometimes in 2019, that was around the 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 within 20 kilometres to the border. However, most of these petroleum marketers already had petroleum products that had been booked days before the customs circular in their various petroleum 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.”
He, however, said that two days after that circular, officials of the service from Ikeja in collaboration with Idiroko Customs raided all the filling stations in Idiroko in the dead of the night.
Oyeniyi added that they towed away fully laden petroleum tankers to the military barracks in Owode.
“The total number of fully laden petroleum tankers moved away to the military barracks in Owode was 19, while another five fully laden petroleum tankers were towed to the Customs formation here in Idiroko.”
Explaining further, he said 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 interlocutory injunction in July 2020.
He added that while the case was still in court, the trucks detained inside the military barracks in Owode were moved to Ikorodu where they were allegedly 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 N20m damages against Customs and N2m as the 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 have not complied with the order of the 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 further narrated.
One of the affected persons, who was also the leader of the group, Lukmon Jamiu, said, “Each of the trucks is valued at N50m and the products inside them are worth N15m. Our businesses have been crippled. We need the enforcement of this judgement so that we can have our lives and businesses back,” he said.
