The Fierce Battle against Fake Products
Crusoe Osagie captures the strides and setbacks in the nation’s fight for standards enforcement in the past five years
Until Odumodu’s intervention, Nigerian exporters of some commodities and products had to take their goods to Ghana and other nations for testing and accreditation before these goods could qualify for the international market
Half of a decade ago, of every 10 items purchased from the Nigerian market, above eight of them were certain to be substandard and of unacceptable quality.
This unfortunate trade scenario was revealed by a baseline study conducted by Dr. Joseph Odumodu when he was just appointed the Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) after he spent decades as Managing Director and Chief Executive of pharmaceutical multinational, May and Baker Plc.
Though armed with a first class Bachelors Degree in Pharmacy from the University of Ife now Obafemi Awolowo University, two masters degrees and a Phd, along with decades of corporate leadership experience, the prognosis of the nation’s products and services challenge got the full attention of the former SON boss. He immediately realised that his new role was not going to be a walk in the park.
But having now stepped down as director general of the standards body last week and getting quite a lot done within just five years, it can be safely said that he effectively deployed his skills to salvage a very strategic segment of the economy what hitherto left so much to be desired.
In 2015, when another base line survey was carried out, after Odumodu had implemented his counter measures, the rate of fake and substandard products in the country had fallen to around 30 per cent.
Also, a very poorly trained and unmotivated bunch of middle-level management employees at SON had been reformed and sharpened up for effectiveness, and a six-point agenda which was the fulcrum of the entire intervention had turned out to be highly effective.
SON before 2011 Prior to 2011 when Odumodu took over the management of the nation’s standards body, the country was drowning in a deluge of fake and substandard products, at the time, you could purchase those highly inefficient electricity bulbs for a single point in you house 5 to 10 times in a year because you were almost certain to be buying the fake one which filled the market. The same was the case for other products across all the segments of the market.
This left the image of the agency at an alltime low. There was a generally poor public perception and repulsive image of SON as Nigerians were overly dissatisfied.
Also, the agency lacked standard testing laboratories to carry out its statutory functions as a facilitative (trade) regulatory agency: There was poor revenue generation as a result of leakages and criminalities in its activities at the ports and borders, enforcement, quality assurance, laboratories testing, among others; Lack of global certification of local products as a standard body by the international community; lack of competent middle level manpower; non-Motivated and highly demoralised and low level work force; dearth of quality infrastructure/ infrastructural decay, poor/inadequate facilities including office accommodation; There was also high prevalence of sub-standard products especially imports all over the country; financial leakages and corruption within the system itself; incessant cases of building collapse and construction failures due to sub-standard materials and mis-applications of materials; almost a non-performing and weak SON Act that could not even bark and bite and the lack of standard laboratories for testing and certification of products.
The organisation was essentially in dire need of salvaging and activation for proper positioning to enable it deliver on its mandate of making Nigeria’s landscape free from dangerous products.
Interventions Like it is often said that any successful endeavour begins with a good plan, Odumodu captured the gamut of activities that was going to take place throughout his stint at SON in a smart six-point strategy made up of capacity build- ing; global relevance;, consumer engagement; competitiveness of locally made goods; compliance and monitoring as well as media collaboration-These points later fused into one propelling vital force termed Made-in-Nigeria-for-the-World (MINFOW). The campaign primarily seeded out all the achievements of the agency in the last five years which includes the reduction of the level of sub-standard products across the country from 85 per cent (data from a study we conducted in 2011) to 30 per cent in 2015; an international accreditation for SON’s Food Technology Laboratories at Lekki, Lagos; installation of automated machines to check financial leakages and corruption in the system; an anti-dumping agreement with the Chinese government brokered, awaiting official sealing by Nigerian and Chinese officials.
Achievements Not many Nigerians were aware that until Odumodu’s intervention, Nigerian exporters of some commodities and products had to take their goods to Ghana and other nations for testing and accreditation before these goods could qualify for the international market. There was not a single laboratory in Nigeria with the requisite international accreditation to carry out acceptable tests for the global market. This very sad tale was changed by the immediate past former DG of SON.
Today, SON’s Food and Technology Labs which got international accreditation, now help to reduce the rejection of the nation’s products, especially the agro-allied commodities at the global export market.
The agency has also attracted over N20 billion investments through regulatory support for the electric wire and cables sub sector. This was achieved through the removal of fake cables which hitherto caused high rate of building inferno, therefore ensuring that quality cables got a fair chance in the market. This brought a boom to the cable industry. Local cable makers can now serve the oil and gas industry and are gaining a firm ground in the export market due to very high quality.
The standards agency created over 30,000 jobs through the effective regulation of galvanized Aluminium roofing sheets, blown off roofs are virtually now a thing of the past, Nigeria now has one of the best quality roofing sheets in the world with operators now quite pleased with agency’s positive interventions.
In the iron and steel sector, a verification and regulation system was instituted and this regime resulted in the production of high quality iron bars/rods now in the market. Locally-produced steel bars meet export specifications. Iron bars now have identification marks of manufacturers for traceability, part of SON’s efforts to stem the tide of building collapse. Also in the building and construction industry, block moulders training workshops were carried across the country for block makers to ensure high quality blocks, reduce/check building collapse. At the end SON certified and registered genuine block makers who now have their associations helping to check quacks and quackery in the sector.
Understanding that the micro and small businesses are the most strategic in dealing with the job creation challenge in the country, the agency commenced nation-wide training of SMEs/ agro-allied operators on packaging, labelling, and laboratory services.
The hydra-headed problem of adulteration of petroleum products and under-dispensing was also tackled, with the eventual introduction of a technique/device that can report adulterated petroleum product in any part of the country to a central unit.
For many years, Nigeria tried to achieve quality in the market without a national quality policy in place, pretty much like trying to fly to a given destination without and airline ticket. However, under Odumodu, for the first time ever, a Nigerian National Quality Policy Plan (NNQPP) which draft now awaits presidential assent was developed. SON put experts together to develop the plan with some assistance from the United Nations Industrial Development ORGANISATION (UNIDO), sister agencies and the academia.
There was also the inauguration of Nigeria National Metrology Institute (NMI) in Enugu, to fast-track the availability of weights and measurement tools needed for industrial growth; the setting up of an ultra-modern 32 Laboratories complex at Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos, to cater for all facets of trade parameters testing in the nation’s economy.
The agency engaged in stakeholders cooperation and collaboration, as the fulcrum to carry relevant stakeholders along, particularly manufacturers, importers, exporters, members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS)- National Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI), National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), National Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), among others.
SON has so far offered free certifications to some SMEs before now, SMEs used to dodge regulators, the story has since changed. They are now partners in progress. The relationship has continued to promote competitiveness through quality products and packaging of local goods.
Set Backs These achievement were not without challenges, some of them very daunting, one of which was SON’s exit from seaports in 2011. With the absence of SON at the nation’s ports, importers of sub-standard products appear to be having a field day as no one confronts them concerning SONCAP certificate- a pre requisite before goods are allowed into the country.
There is also the issue of the shortage of manpower with a very probing question “how can 1,400 personnel effectively regulate a nation of over 170 million people?
Due to these limitations, economic saboteurs still cut corners, circumventing laudable policies and programmes. Some print and paste our labels on fake products.
Agents of SON have threats to their lives as a constant reality. Having stepped on some powerful toes, having seized and destroyed over N10 billion worth of counterfeit products. Enforcement and compliance have remained quite risky and hazardous. Chasing containers, raiding warehouses and companies, looking for substandard products, exposes agents to dangers and threats to personal safety and property.
Also, the various arms of government need to address the market glut in the steel sector by making MDAs patronise locally produced iron bars which are now of high quality. The steel companies have large work force which helps the nation deal with unemployment.
Other challenges which the agency has faced include the depleting and poor budget for the agency over the years which has hampered optimal output; cement grade classification which they tried to carry out in 2014 as part of efforts to check rampant cases of building collapse but was highly resisted by some major cement manufacturing companies operating in Nigeria. They obtained a court verdict putting on hold the implementation of the policy. That Standard should however be implemented for public safety.Also the effort to intervene in the malady of adulterated petroleum products was again dampened by power play.
As Odumodu, who has also led the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) by virtue of becoming the President of the region’s umbrella standards body for three years running moves on from his assignment as a civil servant, he admonished: “Stability and continuity remain the pillars of democratic governance. Our advice is; please, don’t throw away the baby with the bath water, the initiatives are not for Odumodu, they are for the good of the country. Standards, they say, govern life. Entrenching a system that promotes quality and standard products is good for the nation, the economy and the entire citizenry.”