Prominent business leaders, top commercial banks, and other wealthy Nigerians who are the owners of foreign-registered private jets have sued the Federal Government to stop it from putting their planes on the ground because they reportedly refused to pay import duty on the aircraft.
Last November, the Federal Government gave its approval to the Nigeria Customs Service’s decision to ground 91 private planes owned by affluent Nigerians due to their alleged failure to pay more than N30 billion in import charges.
As a result, after receiving presidential clearance, the NCS instructed the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority in a letter to immediately ground the impacted private planes.
However, the appropriate government authorities were unable to ground the private planes due to problems with inter-agency rivalry and conflicts.
However, many individuals familiar with the situation acknowledged to The PUNCH on Tuesday that the Customs had been working covertly over the last several months to perfect the procedure for grounding private planes whose owners failed to pay the import charge.
17 owners of jets
Additionally, our sources discovered over the weekend that at least 17 private plane owners had filed legal challenges to prevent the Federal Government from carrying out the order.
The jet owners are requesting a judicial review to determine whether or not it is legal for them to pay the contentious import charge on their private aircraft, according to court documents obtained by The PUNCH.
Through the foreign shell companies and trustees used to buy the foreign-registered planes, the jet owners filed a lawsuit against the government.
Nigerians and corporate entities frequently purchase their aircraft using overseas shell corporations and trustees.
According to experts, they frequently choose to register the planes in other nations, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Isle of Man, to lower their insurance costs and maintain the worth of the aircraft if they decide to sell it.
According to the most recent information, the owners of the jets had applied to the Federal High Court in Abuja, asking the court to decide, among other things, whether they had to pay import duties.
An application for judicial review by foreign registered aircraft against the Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority is the subject of the lawsuit, with file number FHC/ABJ/CS/1565/2021.
The 17 applicants—most of which are foreign corporations owned by Nigerian jet owners—are listed in the court record as Aircraft Trust and Financing Corp Trustee, UAML Corp, Bank of Utah Trustee, Masterjet AVIACAO Executive SA, and Cloud Services Limited.
Others include Panther Jets, SAIB LLC, Empire Aviation Group, Osa Aviation Limited, MHS Aviation GmbH, Murano Trust Company Limited, and SAIB.
Additionally on the list are BUA Delaware Inc, ATT Aviation Limited, Flying Bull Corporation Limited, Air Charter Inc, Sparfell Luftahrt GmbH, and WAT Aviation Limited.
Respondents on the list included Customs and the NCAA.
“The brief facts of this case are that the first respondents, having discovered that some operators of aircraft imported them under the guise of Temporary Importation Permit, were permanently imported into Nigeria and given TIP status to evade payment of lawful customs,” the court paper for the first respondent’s objector notice of preliminary objection stated in part.
According to early findings by our correspondent, a hearing date has not yet been set for the lawsuit.
However, there are definite signs that the NCS is frantically trying to persuade the owners of private jets to pay the import fee.
On Tuesday, several sources affirmed that the NCS was continuing with its plan to collect the money for the federal government despite having won the president’s assent.
According to the information, the agency may decide on the subject quickly.
Further information revealed that the Customs has official records proving that import duties are owed by private aircraft owners by law.
However, Mr. Sam Adurogboye, a spokesman for the NCAA, stated that he had yet to get a briefing but added that “if a case is brought against a person or organization, what is to be done is to put an appearance and defend oneself.”
The NCS had started an examination of import taxes paid on private aircraft imported into the nation since 2006 in March of last year.
