The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Tuesday destroyed substandard mobile phone accessories worth over N480 million.
The move is to deter unscrupulous importers who indulge in illicit trade to short-change unsuspecting consumers Director, Inspectorate, Compliance and Directorate, SON, Mr. Obiora Manafa, said the exercise yesterday in Epe, Lagos was to ensure that the goods do not find their way into the market He said: “We are here today to destroy some products that are dangerous and we do not want them to enter the markets. They are mobile accessories and they are fake major brands such as Samsung, Tecno, Infinix, Huawei and lots of others. We seized these items last year from a commercial warehouse at Ojo-Alaba Lagos. We subjected them to laboratory analysis and they all failed.”
According to him, the importers of the substandard mobile accessories contravened the law by faking known brands.
“Firstly,” he said, “they have contravened the law by faking because they faked known brands and when we took these products to the original brand owners, they denied ownership which means that they are fake brands. We also went further to do the analysis and they all failed the test. We are also looking at these accessories from two aspects which include the economic and safety point of views. The economic point is that the accessories you buy will not last more than a week and this to us do not make economic sense because you do not get value for the money spent.
“The safety aspect is that these accessories pose serious threat to the users. When we tested the insulation parameters of these products, they all failed woefully..”
states that the minimum power you get from these products should be 1000 mega ohms, but the values we got after testing gave only 60 mega ohms. So it is as bad as using naked wires because it is not preventing any flow of current exposing the users to electric shocks and can even burn houses," he added.
He noted that the Director General and the management of SON cannot allow these products to enter the Nigerian market, saying that the products were destroyed after obtaining a court order "These products are valued over N480 million. We are not happy burning these products because it is a loss to the owners.
The owners have spent so much money to import these products and the whole investment is going into flames. It is even a drain on the national economy and nobody is happy about that, but we have our primary responsibility to protect lives and property of Nigerians. Life supercedes everything and we are not going to allow these products into the market,” he added.
He said SON is still on the trail of the importers of these goods with no economic value, pointing out that the agency would stop at nothing until it gets them prosecuted.
Also speaking at the event, the Head, Enforcement, Nigeria Copyright Commission (NCC), Lagos Office, Charles Amudipe, commended SON for its fight against substandard goods in the country, noting that the counterfeited products are not fit for use by end users.
