By Hyacinth Chinweuba
One Abdullahi Bala has been arrested by operatives of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in Lagos for alleged underpayment of N123.7M duty payment.
Abdullahi who was arrested by the Federal Operations Unit of Customs was unable to produce evidence of duty payment for a McLaren luxury car amounting to N300,000 for a vehicle he ought to have paid N124M.
The McLaran brand of cars are specially built British automobiles .
According to topspeed.com,an auto dealer site, some brand of McLaren cars are sold for $3m (USD) amounting to over N850M.
While the vehicle was detained at the Customs office in Ikeja, Abdullahi was granted bail after the arrest and asked to return to pay the shortfall of N123,700,000.
The arrest, according to findings, is in line with the renewed drive by the Controller General of Customs,Hameed Ali, to recover lost government revenue and block areas of leakages within the customs.
Confirming the incident in a telephone interview,spokesman for the customs anti smuggling outfit in Lagos, Uche Ejesieme said that the vehicle is being detained in their facility.
”We allowed him to go because its a bailable offence. We are still carrying out investigation on the matter.The car is a specially built McLaran car that attracts a duty of N124M but he paid N300,000.”
Ejesieme said the customs is likely not going to charge him to court if he pays up a Demand Notice to be issued to him next week.
The customs spokesman who confirmed the suspect’s name as Abdullahi Bala added that they are not aware if he is related to any former minister or politician.