By Charles Nwaoguji
In order to free the Nigerian market from substandard products, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has destroyed substandard goods valued at over N500 million.
Its Director General, Osita Aboloma, says the goods did not meet the required production standards. At the dump site in Lagos, Aboloma said the action was to serve as a deterence to importers of the fake products.
He described the continued act of importing substandard goods as an economic sabotage, warning that SON will be relentless in intercepting such cargoes.
Aboloma warned all importers to conform to its SONCAP certification by ensuring that all imported goods get the SON quality seal.
He said they were impounded from several locations in the country, adding that most of the goods found their way into the country through unapproved routes along the borders in different parts of the country.
He noted that despite the series of campaigns organised by SON to educate the citizenry about the harmful effects of these products, importers, especially smugglers, have continued to indulge in the illicit trade. The goods, he said, were destroyed to save the lives of Nigerians who are not aware of their harmful effect, adding that so many people have lost their loved ones by consuming these substandard products.
“We want to use this opportunity to beg Nigerians, especially the genuine importers, to always insist on doing the right thing by working together with the authorities, to get the right minimum requirements to import goods into the country,” he said.
The DG said the destruction was carried out in accordance with SON’s procedure, which started with market survey, surveillance, inventory, seizure, sampling, laboratory tests and analyses to ascertain conformity to specifications and requirement of Nigeria Industrial Standards (NIS).
ìTodayís exercise is therefore the culmination of a rigorous process to ascertain the quality of each product with the sole objective of improving lives through standards by protecting all of us consumers against the hazards associated with the distribution, purchase and use of substandard products,î he said.