The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has destroyed confiscated substandard tyres, electrical cables and fake oil lubricants that run into billions of Naira.
SON also said it would put an end to the importation of fake and substandard electrical cables that pose a serious threat to lives and property, which limits the growth of Nigeria’s cable industry.
Speaking on Thursday in Lagos during the public destruction of seized substandard items at SON’s facility in Lagos, Farouk Salim, director general of SON, said Nigeria’s cable industry is successful, which is why dubious importers are smuggling fake cables into the country.
“Due to the policy, we need to make sure that our indigenous companies are protected. All Nigerian-based cable industry is good, and it helps us to identify the fake ones and we sometimes use our intelligence to find these dubious importers because their actions are affecting our economy,” he said.
According to him, there are some of the cables the SON cannot destroy pending court judgment, and they are all fake products.
He said those fake electrical cables look like copper but in the actual sense they are either iron or copper coated.
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“When these fake electrical cables are used in the building, it usually gets heated up and this leads to fire. A lot of houses have been destroyed by fire caused by a fake electrical cable, 100 percent of which are not made in Nigeria,” Salim said.
He said the act of bringing in dangerous substandard products amounts to economic sabotage for the cable manufacturing industry and people through the loss of individuals who innocently buy these products.
Salim further said it was one of the reasons the SON went to the last national assembly to review its act and to ensure that peddlers of life-threatening materials are jailed not just fined.
He however lauded the National Assembly for passing the reviewed act, which is awaiting to be assented into law by the President.
The SON DG said the court also approved the destruction of used and substandard tyres as well as fake lubricants that were smuggled into the country through the nation’s borderlines.
“Importers of fake motor oil lubricants, use popular brands to smuggle fake products because the product we have behind does not belong to the company, the name was used to import the oil. This was why the court gave us permission to confiscate the product and destroy them,” he added.
He said the value of the products runs into billions of naira and that SON needs to keep on seizing them in order to stop dubious importers from bringing fake products into the country.
