MTN Nigeria Communication Limited on Tuesday filed a 9,100-page document in a bid to prove its N3bn claim against the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), in their legal battle.
The extraordinarily bulky-looking documents were brought in a coaster bus and delivered to the Federal High Court, Lagos, registry.
The telecommunications company sued Malami last year in protest against an August 20, 2018 letter in which the AGF demanded that the firm pay N242bn and $1.3bn as import duties, withholding and value added taxes.
Lawyer for the company, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), described the AGF’s N242bn and $1.3bn demand from MTN as “malicious, unreasonable and one made on an incorrect legal basis”.
Olanipekun said in writing the demand letter to MTN, Malami acted beyond his powers and violated the provisions of Section 36 of the constitution on fair hearing with “the purported revenue asset investigation” he carried out on the firm’s activities covering 2007 to 2017.
He urged the court to award N3bn against Malami as general and exemplary damages.
Justice C.J. Aneke, who is hearing the case, in May dismissed the preliminary objection filed by Malami, challenging the competence of the suit.
Justice Aneke rejected the AGF’s argument that the suit was not filed within three months of cause of action and was statute barred.
“From the endorsement on the writ, this suit was commenced on September 10, 2018 and a simple calculation shows that from August 23, 2018 when the cause of action arose to September 10, 2018, when the suit was instituted, a period of three months had not expired, as envisaged, for the suit to be statute barred,” the judge held as he declined the AGF’s prayer to strike out the suit.
Meanwhile, Tuesday’s proceedings were stalled as counsel sought an adjournment.
Justice Aneke adjourned till January 30, 2020.
In the suit, MTN is urging the court to declare that the AGF acted illegally by “usurping the powers of the Federal Inland Revenue Service to audit and demand remittance of withholding tax and value added tax”.
The firm also wants the court to declare that with the “self-assessment exercise,” the AGF usurped the powers of the Nigerian Customs Service to demand payment of import duties.
It wants the court to declare that “the purported self- assessment” conducted by the AGF was “unknown to law, null and void and of no effect whatsoever”.
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