The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has concluded plans to recruit 5 million people across the country into its newly inaugurated National Coalition to boost the on-going fight against the production of fake and substandard products. According to the Director-General of SON, Joseph Nkem Odumodu, we have already formed a National Coalition, our plan is to recruit up to five million Nigerians who are going to be part of this crusade.
Speaking on Tuesday in Ibadan at a Walk to Live Enlightenment programme tagged ‘Zero Tolerance against Substandard Products’ organised by the organisation for selected stakeholders in Oyo State said “we believe that five million is a critical mark that we will use to sustain this campaign to a level that will be impossible for people to bring substandard products into Nigeria”.
To this end, it has already appointed the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar as the SON Ambassador in Nigeria.
He however disclosed that a bill to review the enabling Act of the S0N is currently before the National Assembly saying that by the time it is passed into law, “an offender may be made to go to jail without an option of fine.”
While explaining that the SON awareness campaign is focusing mainly on life-endangering items like tyres, cement, electrical products noted that the organization believed that any fake or substandard product in among these items “can directly lead to a loss of life.”
While also calling for the support of all members of the public in this regard stated that “we are collaborating with all government agencies and we believe that by working together, we will be able to achieve the set mandate,”. Odumodu who assured that the campaign would be taken to all the geo-political zones of the country stated that his team had earlier visited the South-South and the North West zones.
Reeling out the gains of wiping out fake and substandard products in Nigeria ,the SON Director-General said it would lead to greater employment opportunities for the teeming youths; improved capacity utilization; economic empowerment; access to quality goods and protection from poor quality products; better life for all.
REMI FEYISIPO
