Efforts geared towards ridding Nigeria’s vibrant mobile phone market of counterfeit devices is yielding results. The Phone and Allied Products Dealers Association (PAPDA) of Computer Village Ikeja, says its partnership with the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has led to the registration of over 30 phone brands in the market. The group through its President, Ikye Onwe, disclosed that sequel to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) it signed with SON to rid the market of counterfeit products, PAPDA provides an office for SON officials for the establishment of a market desk. Two staff of SON was subsequently deployed to operate from the office in order to mutually fight substandard products.
Specifically, to support the agency’s zero tolerance on sub-standard phones, PAPDA facilitated a joint trip for SON’s top management to China where they visited some phone factories and met with over 65 owners of phone factory to ensure that these factories no longer manufacture and import sub-standard phones into the Nigerian market. Onwe further explained that the association and all importers of mobile phones in the Computer Village market agreed that from July 1, 2014, all mobile phones that would be sold in Nigeria would be products that have been duly registered with SON.
These products must have brand name marks. According to him, passed off mobile phones such as “Nokia and Samsung products will not be stocked and displayed in stores owned by PAPDA’s members”. In addition, the group agreed that all mobile phone brands sold in Nigeria market need to have a functional service centre which would cater to “after sales services”. PAPDA has, however, warned that all products that lack these requirements would be confiscated and destroyed by the “joint taskforce of the SON and PAPDA”. Some of the mobile phone brands that have passed SON’s comprehensive e-product registrations are Gowin, M’horse, Bontel, XGP, Tukaro, Q7, and Soloking. Others are U-Boss, Oktec, Maxtel, BML, MBO, Teemur, Aus, Mi-phone, Opsson, and MTK. Admet, H-mobile, DXD, Teenic, Simba, Ucall, Treesky, and Gionee and Kenxinda are the others. The federal government had earlier said that about one million fake phones valued at N2.7 billion were imported into Nigeria in 2013.
Omobola Johnson, minister of communication and technology, made this known at the Consumer Roundtable on Phone Rights organised by the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) to commemorate the 2014 World Consumer Rights Day in Abuja. Johnson, who said the number could be higher by the end of 2014, however, noted that government’s ability to attract investments into the telecom sector would be severely hampered if the nation remains a lucrative market for fake products. She also noted that the health hazards of sub-standard devices, and fake phones are significant, especially exploding batteries, adding that “fake phones are actually a drain on network resources as they reduce network speed and impair reception simply because they use substandard components like antenna. “Sometimes if you experience poor quality service, it may simply be from your phone and not the network operators’ fault. So consumers, the well-known adage applies here. If the price is too good to be true then it is too good to be true,” she stated. The minister said though quality of service issues is not just a Nigerian phenomenon but also a global one, the sources vary from inadequate or weak regulation to inadequate infrastructure, non-transparent billing, customer service and fake phones that compromise the quality of service experienced by the consumer.
