The Director General of Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr Joseph Odumodu, has said that Nigerians must change their consumption pattern for the economy to thrive.
Odumodu the statement in
an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday, adding
that currently, the country’s consumption pattern was about 80 per cent of
imported products.
He said no nation would
become independent through importation and as such Nigeria needed to do more to
ensure that its industries were functional to provide jobs for the youth.
``Anytime you are
importing, you are paying salaries of people abroad.
``This is a highly
populated country, where will our graduates work when there are fewer
industries today than there were 20 years ago?
``There are more
graduates today than we had 20 years ago; we have to begin to address these
inconsistencies.
``So, as I am talking to
you, eight out of 10 products used in Nigeria are imported.
``It is not good, it is
something we must try to change in the next three to four years to reduce it to
50,’’ Odumodu said.
He expressed regret that
some people preferred to do business that harmed other Nigerians by importing
substandard products and that SON was determined to ensure the situation did
not persist.
He said that in so far as
the law had empowered SON to act, it required the personnel to enforce rules on
the standardisation of products.
Odumodu said there were
over 1,000 markets in Nigeria as well as many borders and that the only way to
address the issue of standards was to get people to enforce rules.
``You do not keep the
same person, if you keep the same person for three to six months, he will no
longer see anything wrong with the importation of substandard products.
``I think government
should approve over 1,000 people within the next three months and then people
can see real impact of our enforcement activities.
``We currently have about
1,400 people in SON and most of us are in technical areas, such as biologists,
chemists and engineers.
``I think we have fairly
enough to do the background job that we need to do,’’ Odumodu said.
According to him, some
Nigerians have made billions of naira from importing sub-standard products into
the country.
He said the new SON Act
of 2015 had given the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment the power to
designate a port on the advice of SON for a particular set of products.
``Most of the bad cables
that come into Nigeria are coming through the borders, they do not come through
the ports.
``So, the new Act of SON,
2015 enables the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment to designate a port
on the advice of SON for a particular set of products when they are life
endangering.
``We can now go to the
minister and say we do not want the cables to come through the borders; we want
them to come only through Apapa or Tin can Island.
``When that is approved
by the minister it automatically becomes law and what it means is that if I see
any cable at Seme Border, I can destroy it without testing,’’ he said.
According to him, when
such law becomes effective the level of sub-standard products will reduce.
``I assure you that the
new act brings relief to Nigerian industries, which means more employment,
economic development and government will generate more tax.
``This is how it is all
linked up and it is possible,’’ Odumodu said.
Odumodu said SON’s new
disposition was giving those involved in illegal businesses a lot of nightmares
with some in Alaba International Market, Lagos, and other markets accusing it
of changing the rules.
``I believe that a good
name is better than all these billions.
``So, when I started in
2011, I went to Alaba, went to all these big markets and they said: `Odumodu,
you are trying to change the rules. You are making new laws’
``I told them that we do
not make law in SON; we merely insist that people must comply with the law,’’
Odumodu said. (NAN)
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