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Nearly Half Of Nigeria’s Imported Goods Are Substandard, Counterfeit

Nearly Half Of Nigeria’s Imported Goods Are Substandard, Counterfeit

From Prime Times

Hewlett-Packard hosted the 2014 anti-counterfeit conference in Abuja to highlight the negative impact of counterfeit and fake products on the economy. The Director General, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, Joseph Odumodu, was there. He spoke with PREMIUM TIMES Business Editor, Bassey Udo:

PT: How serious is the problem of counterfeiting, and how much is Nigeria losing from it?

SON: The use of counterfeit products is very dangerous. Counterfeit destroys the economy. Counterfeit is like termite, it eats up the foundation of the house. Before one knows what is happening, the house is brought down to the foundation. The Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, does not have the statistics on the loss to the economy from counterfeit. But, taking the situation in the textile industry for example, over one million jobs were lost in the last 20 years due to counterfeiting. There was a time the textile industry was very strong. Suddenly, the country opened its borders and allowed sub-standard textile materials to flood the country from Asia and all other places. The immediate impact was that the local textile industry could not cope with the pressure from competition. Consequently, most of them had to close down.

PT: What value can one put on one million jobs lost over the period in Nigeria?

SON: That information is not available to us. But, there are other industries where the country lost over N100 billion. That’s the only statistics available. But it could be more. The point is: Do we know how many people may have died from the negative effects of using counterfeit products? Do we know how much people lost their lives from this? Some of the chemicals used in printing, like ink, contain some heavy metals that have some serious health-threatening ingredients. For example, human bodies do not tolerate lead or zinc, which can lead to some malignancies. The regulatory agencies must not delay to take action against any agency found to have been involved in counterfeiting. For instance, counterfeiting has done a huge damage to the textile industry in Nigeria. We must find new innovative ways to tackle the problem. What we must do as a people is to reject counterfeit products in every form. The more people continue to buy counterfeit products, the more they would continue to thrive. And the challenge Nigeria is having today is that there is no strong regulatory framework as is the case in Europe and America. The country has a very weak regulatory framework. Our borders are porous. The level of ignorance among consumers is very high. The level of corruption too is very high. If all these things are considered, one must be a magician to make a success of regulation and enforcement in this environment. Sometimes the agencies may have to break the law to protect the industry.

Read more at Prime Times