SON Reviews Act to jail substandard product peddlers, destroys seized billions of Naira adulterated materials

By Abiodun OBA

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Thursday in Lagos destroyed of materials worth billions of Naira seized by the organisation.

The Director General of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim, who disclosed this on Thursday in Lagos during the destruction of materials seized by the organisation, noted that some of the products destroyed had gotten court orders to that effect.

On the seized tyres, he said that some of them are new tyres but unfortunately when the importer brought them in, other tyres were stuffed inside them.

“Due to this, these tyres lose their integrity and they become dangerous to the society, the ones looking new are used tyres, they are pressed and polished to look new.

“The fakers of the motor oil lubricants intercepted in Calabar, use popular products so our Nigerian lubricant manufacturers that are successful have to contain with individuals trying to copy their product.

“Nobody copies a product that is not successful, the only problem is the copying is a bad one.

“The product you are seeing behind does not belong to that popular company. It was being copied and they have been taken to court, convicted and the court gave us the permission to confiscate the product and destroy them,” he said.

Salim pointed out that the Nigerian cable industry is successful and good, and they key into associations to help identify these fake ones.

He noted that SON at times used their intelligence to fish these people out because their activities were affecting the economy of the country.

“Due to the policy on local content, we need to make sure that our indigenous companies are protected.

“These cables are supposed to be copper, but they are either iron or copper coated, when used in building, it gets hot and this leads to fire,” he said.

On the value of these products, the SON Director General said that it ran into billions of Naira, adding that they would keep seizing the products to force the perpetrators to stop.

“To your eyes, these products don’t look nice, but an unscrupulous person can take these, clean it up and send to the market and make billions of naira from it.

“As regards this environment, the seized items are safe here as the place is twenty-four hours monitored by police, civil defence,” he said.

Salim harped that the organisation was reviewing its Act to ensure peddlers of life-threatening materials are jailed rather than fined.

Salim lamented that the peddlers of the items are economic saboteurs, and their activities sabotage our industry, people and cause loss for individuals who are innocently buying these products.

“This is one of the reasons why in the last National Assembly, we went to them to review our Act to make sure that peddlers of life-threatening materials are jailed, not just fined.

“Thankfully, they have passed the law but unfortunately when government was settling down, they did not get the opportunity for Mr. President to sign the law.

“So it is back in the National Assembly for concurrence and hopefully very soon it will be with the President, and I am sure Mr. President will sign that amendment and those individuals selling threatening items will be jailed immediately they are caught,” he said.