I won’t appear before Senate until… Ali

…Announces code number for vehicle duty clearance verification

The running battle between the Senate and the Comptroller General (CG) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) has assumed a new dimension as the CG has disclosed that he will not appear before the Senate today (Wednesday) based on a writ of summons he received Tuesday on a case filed by an Abuja based lawyer, Mr. Mohammed Ibrahim, at an Abuja court.

According to him, it would be subjudice for him to appear before the Senate on the pending issues before them which are also part of what is before the court.

His words: “Based on the advice from lawyers and briefing from the Office of the Attorney General and Minister of Justice who is also a party in the suit, I won’t be appearing before the Senate tomorrow until the court decides otherwise”.

Recall that the lawyer had filed a case in court challenging the power of the Senate to dictate to Ali, who was appointed by the President pursuant to the President’s powers under sections 5 and 171 of the Constitution on how to conduct himself.

The writ of Summons in the Suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/207/2017, filed before the court on Tuesday by the lawyer, asked that the status quo be maintained, pending the determination of the matter before the court.

The Customs CG has been having a running battle with Senate over his decision to appear before the senate in mufti after he was ordered to appear in his uniform.

In a related development, to ensure that Nigerians, who wanted to verify the authenticity of their Customs duty clearance, could do so at the comfort of their homes with the use of their mobile phones, the CG has announced a code number for efficient and effective vehicle duty clearance verification.

He made the disclosure at a media stakeholders meeting in Abuja.

Ali said that the essence of the meeting was to have a roundtable with stakeholders to come up with solution to avoid causing hardship to Nigerians with regards to duty payment on old vehicles and verification.

“For effective and easy Customs duty clearance verification, you can dial or send SMS to these numbers 094621597 with your vehicle C-number, the year you paid the duty and the port or location where the vehicle came through into the country.

“Immediately all that information is given, just in five minutes you will get a response whether your vehicle duty clearance is genuine or not,’’ Ali said.

He said the essence of the number was to ensure stress free verification to motor dealers and innocent Nigerian vehicle owners.

According to him, for easy traffic flow, the last number which is 7 in the digits 094621597 can be either changed to 8 or 9, to get response faster with different Customs personnel on duty at every point in time.

Ali said that Nigerians misunderstood Customs intention regarding duty payment on old vehicles, adding that the excise was actually meant for motor dealers.

He added that Customs later decided to give innocent private vehicle owners, who after verification, might find out that their vehicles had no genuine duty clearance to take advantage of the 60 per cent rebate.