Court restrains IGP from intimidating Benue revenue staff

A State High Court sitting in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, has restrained the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and his men from harassing, arresting and detaining staff members and agents of the Benue State Internal Revenue Services(BIRS) while performing their lawful duties.

The presiding judge, Justice Adam Onum who gave ruling in the case brought before him by Benue State Internal Revenue Services on Friday ordered that police do not have the competence to issue any executive directives contradicting the laws of Benue state which was validly passed by the State House of Assembly.

In a suit MHC/297/2017, filed by the Benue State Internal Revenue Service  (BIRS), prayed the court to stop the police from preventing the board to carry out its lawful duties under the state internal revenue administration law, 2015 at the designated inspection points.

It will be recalled that the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, had in May this year setup police special X-squad teams and ordered them to arrest all tax revenue officials operating on federal roads across the nation.

Executive Chairman, Benue State Internal Revenue Service, Chief Mimi Orubibi-Adzape, while reacting to the judgement described it as a welcome development for democracy in Nigeria.

She lamented the ordeals the staff, agents and consultants of the BIRS had suffered in the hands of the IGP special x-squad which she said had made state government to lose several billion naira.

According to her, ‘In January, we generated N888million, in Feb, we generated N1billion, in March N754Millio, April N1.5billion, while in May and June, the board generated N500m, N362million respectively. So, the activities of the X-Squad police officers dwindled revenue generation of the state”.

Also reacting to the judgement, the President of the Consultants Forum of Benue State Internal Revenue Service, Chief John Akperashi, said that the state revenue service must have lost about N3billion as a result of the directive of the Police boss.

Akperachi said that the IG squad had turned the state into a revenue yielding state for themselves by carrying illegal collection of haulage and other taxes from the truck loaders while at the same time harassing, arresting and detaining staff and agents of the state revenue service.

“The police have arrested and intimidated innocent revenue collection agents; they have also destroyed revenue inspection points and their offices, houses and billboards amounting to N3billion,” he said.

Akperashi called on the Inspector General of Police to obey the court order and direct his men to vacate all revenue inspection points in the state.