Nigeria: CPC Records Judgement Against Two People Over Illicit Tobacco Trading

Source from:  Leadership (Abuja) 02/02/2009

Abuja - The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has secured court judgment against two middle-aged men in Kano for their alleged involvement in illicit tobacco trading. The accused persons, Mallam Rabiu Maisalati and Abubakar Baba, were sentenced to various jail terms on a three-count charge brought against them by the Council before a Kano State Chief Magistrate Court. CPC, in its recent market surveillance and enforcement raid to enforce the new Cigarette Standard, NIS 463: 2007, found rolls of what is popularly known among cigarette dealers as Duty Free Benson and Hedges and other non-compliant brands in the shop belonging to Maisalati, located opposite Central Hotel, Kano, according to a statement made available to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND by the council. When the enforcement team of the Council made this discovery, Maisalati, who had had an encounter with CPC officials in an earlier raid sometime in August last year was not in the shop, but he had Abubakar Baba as his shop keeper. Maisalati, arrested and detained at the Bompai Police Station, Kano, alongside four other traders during the August last year raid, but later released and cautioned to desist from illicit tobacco trading, had 14 rolls of the same Duty Free Benson and Hedges seized from him then. Though about 3500 packets of varied sub-standard cigarettes were confiscated from various shops during the recent raid in Kano, the culprits were dragged before the court because of their unrepentant nature. Appearing before Chief Magistrate Sanusi Mohammed Kibiya on the three-count charge of violation of Section 12 (a) of the Consumer Protection Council Act, false counterfeiting of a property mark contrary to Section 374 of the Penal Code Law and violation of the provisions of Sections 3 and 5 of the Tobacco Smoking (Control) Act Cap p6 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, the accused persons pleaded guilty to all the charges. Delivering his judgment, the magistrate sentenced each of the accused persons to six months imprisonment each on the first and second counts and one month imprisonment each for count three, while he gave varied options of fine for the jail sentences. Reacting to the development, the Council's Director General, Mrs. Ify Umenyi, said "securing this judgment against the culprits is the best way to start the year." According to her, "the era of treating culprits with kid gloves is over". Enditem