BY AKINWALE ABOLUWADE
Traders at the Bodija and Oja Oba markets, in Ibadan, Oyo State, have demanded for the sum of N200,000,000 as general damages for the midnight raid and closure of their shops by men of the Nigeria Customs Service.
On April 1, the affected traders protested a midnight raid in which some personnel of the NCS carted away their wares, including more than 250 bags of rice and a lump sum of money said to be over N4million.
The traders instituted a case on the raid by the Customs before an Abuja High Court.
The raid, reported to have been carried out by men of the Federal Operations Unit of the Service, was said to be part of the clampdown on the smuggling of foreign rice into the country.
Less than one month after the Bodija Market raid, the Customs raided the Oja Oba Market in Ibadan, where eight truck loads of bags of rice were also confiscated.
The traders, after the protest in Ibadan against the raids, took their case to the National Assembly, seeking for the intervention of Senator Kola Balogun, representing Oyo South Senatorial District, in order to have their seized goods returned to them.
The Senate Committee on Ethics and Public Petitions condemned the midnight invasion of the two markets and urged the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), to return the seized goods, the money and also reopen the shops locked up within two weeks.
The committee said the action of the NCS was a breach of the Customs Act and the Executive Order signed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007, which empowers the agency to only impound smuggled goods, 40 kilometers radius to the border.
Balogun said, “The procedure is wrong. The Act says you can seal off the shops in the presence of the owners, not to go there in the night.
“If it happened in Katsina and the goods were returned, why can’t we do similar thing in the case of Bodija? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”
The NCS, however, did not comply with the order of the Senate and the traders eventually approached the court to seek legal redress.
The matter came up before the Abuja High Court, on Wednesday, for mention but it was adjourned because lawyers were not allowed into the court premises as a result of the case involving the founder of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.
