An acquaintance recently narrated an ordeal he had in the hands of Customs men on his way to Benin City a couple of months back. He had just brought in a 2003 Toyota Corolla from the US via the Apapa Port. He was stopped and delayed for about 12 hours by armed customs men. Who declared that his car was being impounded because he did not pay the full amount specified for the car.
My friend flew into a rage, telling the officials that he deliberately avoided buying a car more cheaply from Cotonou in Benin Republic because of this sort of embarrassment and that he ensured his agent went through legitimate customs offices to get the right documents. He asked them if the documents were not genuine and the officials said they were, but that the agent underpaid prescribed duties for the car.  They insisted the vehicle would be taken to their offices till the balance was paid in addition to penalty and demurrage.
He finally parted with N30, 000 bribe before he was let off. He said every vehicle stopped while he was there was impounded for either no customs papers at all or underpaid customs duties. There was a long stretch of them and one by one the owner had to bail themselves out.
Now the question is this, does the customs service have any right to impound a car they duly issued clearance papers to at the port? It is one thing to have fake documents to disguise failure to pay customs duties. That is criminal. But when a car owner holds genuine clearance papers for his vehicle, duly issued by the same customs guys, it is totally unacceptable for him to be harassed by customs guys on the road. He might just as well have avoided paying anything and resorted to smuggling the same car from Cotonou and be prepared to pay bribe if caught.

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bump

car dealer till date in nl never said a word hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

wonder

police trouble me tire for lagos-enugu way tire out of 250,000 na only 57,000 dey for paper under payment abi so why given recipt then ?

i still dey wait

oh yes genuine car dealer ni; we bring fire once again like dem say!!!! may una talk now

Did they realy underpay? I am sure not all vehicle owners have the same problem that day on the same route.

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this man is real!! he drove my car from cotonu to lagos ooo

it is well

oppp where are we!

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yes true but things arent easier when u fall for greedy agents

thats when the police or the custom will tell u this is too little

of #250,000 given to an agant only #57,000 was written in NIGERIA CUSTOM CERTIFICATE not even 124,000 or something

so there is still something hidden !!

and then again why issue the receipt if it was an underpayment in the first place loop hole or not??

ikeyman00:


and then again why issue the receipt if it was an underpayment in the first place loop hole or not??

This is the issue. If you give genuine clearance to a vehicle, you do not have a right to harass the guy when he is driving it on the road.

My question is "do they have any computer system that actually verify on the highway that you've under pay?" or what if you loose receipts somehow,
How do we do a legal registration and get a license plate on a car that wasn't fully cleared?
Am sorry to say but illiteracy will make most armed service men harass civilian until
they actually get the 'egunje" they were after.
Custom will not provide proper channel on spot to get your papers right when they pull you over instead
they lobby for negotiation on bribes,

The whole problem is just from the top, May God help us

I hope when you paid the 30k a reciept was issued to you? Well sha for me i cant fall mugu to that.

stevoche:

I hope when you paid the 30k a reciept was issued to you? Well sha for me i cant fall mugu to that.

I'm told the victims had pretty little choices. Pay your way out (ever heard of receipt for bribe?) or have your car driven to customs offices where you will have to pay five times that plus demurage if you delay. You cannot resist them. They now carry arms, remember?

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ok what makes is the car

has it got geniue custom duty certificate

how much is written on it

I disbelive all you call agent as greedy, I am an agent in seme border and I have seen it all, most of the time it is the importer that is alway looking for a cheap price price to clear his car, for instance you have a 2010 model camry and you want to use 300k to clear it, I and you knw dat is not going to be possible, otherwise the agent will under pay by declaering the car as 2002 model or a toyota bus, insted of camry. The agent will not want to loss the job, cos if he said it will cost you 600k to to clear the said car, you will run away, and there is always some one who is willing to acept the 300k and produce a Bleep document.

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fine what happen then when u are given 250,000 for 2000 honda accord and u only declear 57,000 in the duty paper?