CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA V. LIDAN ENGINEERING LIMITED, JOHNS EXPRESS AGENCIES LIMITED, HOPEVILE & GREEN NIG. LIMITED, MR. CHUKS AGOHA, CUSTOMS, IMMIGRATION AND PRISONS SERVICE BOARD, THE COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF CUSTOMS & ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION

OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.S.C. (Delivering the Lead Judgment): This appeal probes into the rightness of the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division (hereinafter addressed as “the lower Court”), Coram judice: M.B. Dongban-Mensem, S.J. Adah and Y.B. Nimpar, JJCA, in Appeal No. CA/A/277/2019, delivered on the 7th January, 2021. In its decision, the lower Court affirmed the decision of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division (the trial Court), in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/301/2018, delivered on the 18th February, 2019, wherein I. E. Ekwo, J. made a garnishee order absolute against the appellant.

The synopsis of the material facts of the case, which transformed into the appeal, though windy, are incompatible with complexity. Sometime in 2004 the first-fourth respondents imported six 40ft containers into Nigeria from the United States of America. They alleged that three of the six 40ft containers were wrongly auctioned by the fifth-seventh respondents who refused to compensate them despite …