Owners of private aircraft with foreign registration, including powerful businessmen, eminent financial institutions, and other thoughtful Nigerians, have filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government of Nigeria over the imposition of a levy.
The claimants have filed a petition for court review in an effort to prevent the government from seizing their planes because of an allegation that they refused to pay the import duty on the airplanes.
The decision of the Nigeria Customs Service to ground 91 private jets belonging to some wealthy Nigerians was approved by the Federal Government in November of last year.
The decision was made because of the wealthy individuals’ alleged refusal to pay import duties totaling more than N30 billion.
As a result of this, after receiving approval from the president, the NCS issued directives in the form of a letter to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, and the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, ordering them to immediately ground the affected private jets.
Nevertheless, due to concerns with inter-agency rivalries and conflicts, the order was not followed.
However, it has come to light from a variety of credible sources that, over the course of the last few months, the Customs Department has been secretly working on refining the method of bringing to a halt private jets whose owners have failed to pay the required import duty.
As a result, 17 owners of private aircraft have filed a lawsuit in an effort to prevent the Federal Government agency from carrying out the order.
According to the court documents, the owners of the private planes are asking for a judicial review to determine whether or not they are required to pay the contentious import charge on those aircraft.
The overseas shell companies and trustees used to purchase the foreign-registered jets were used by the jet owners in their lawsuit against the government.
According to findings, the jet owners requested the Federal High Court in Abuja establish, among other things, whether they were required to pay import duty.
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 the file number FHC/ABJ/CS/1565/2021.
The 17 applicants include Masterjet AVIACAO Executive SA, Cloud Services Limited, UAML Corp, Bank of Utah Trustee, Aircraft Trust and Financing Corp Trustee, and UAML Corp.
These companies are mostly foreign subsidiaries of Nigerian jet owners.
Others include Panther Jets, SAIB LLC, Empire Aviation Group, Osa Aviation Limited, MHS Aviation GmbH, Murano Trust Company Limited, and SAIB.
BUA Delaware Inc, Flying Bull Corporation Limited, Air Charter Inc, Sparfell Luftahrt GmbH, WAT Aviation Limited, and ATT Aviation Limited are more companies on the list.
Respondents on the list included Customs and the NCAA.
The lawsuit’s hearing date has not yet been scheduled.