SON destroys substandard products worth N8M in Kano

By Miriam Humbe

Over eight million naira worth of substandard products have been destroyed by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) at Yankatsari Yangongon in Kano.
This was meant to serve as harbinger of doom to recalcitrant producers and merchants of substandard products in the Kano/Jigawa States axis.
Details of the substandard and life-endangering products include; Eighty-three (83) bags of 25kg expired foreign rice,Two Hundred and Fifty seven (257) bags of substandard mosquito coil.
One Hundred and Ninety (190) cartons of fake Dorco brand of shaving sticks, Ninety six (96) rolls of fake NOCACO electrical cables; Six (6) bags of substandard fertilizers, One Hundred and Forty Six (146) trays of substandard Automobile Break Fluid; and
Seven Vails of empty sacks of rice.
The SON Regional Coordinator North West, Alhaji Abba Adamu Bauchi and the Kano/Jigawa States Coordinator, Alhaji Yunusa Muhammed, on behalf of the SON Director General, Osita Aboloma., coordinated the destruction of the substandard products.
Briefing reporters before the destruction exercise, Alhaji Yunusa Muhammed disclosed that patriotic Nigerians, including genuine manufacturers and consumers assisted in apprehending the substandard products through provision of classified information.
In addition, SON market surveillance activities and the cooperation of market associations like the Singer market and Kano Electrical Dealers Association (KEDA), provided other avenues to the substandard products, he said.
He acknowledged their cooperation and collaboration as well as those of security and sister regulatory agencies in apprehending the life-endangering and substandard products.
According to him, necessary laboratory tests and analysis were carried out on all the products to ascertain and confirm their quality status as being substandard and life endangering, while necessary approvals have been secured to destroy the items in line with the provisions of the SON Act 14 of 2015.
Muhammed stressed the Director General’s pledge of SON’s continued commitment to the fight against the circulation of substandard and life endangering products, and emphased that the purveyors should either quit or be ready to face the full wrath of the law, through prosecution.
The exercise was witnessed by the Vice-Chairman, Dawakin Kudu Local Government, Yakubu Musa, Muhammed Baba Ahmad and Ado Uba of the Kano State Ministries of Environment and Commerce respectively, representatives of sister regulatory and security agencies as well as the media.
Representatives of the agencies at the destruction exercise were Hamza Abubakar of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Kano/Jigawa Command; Mukhtar Abdullahi of the Department of State Services (DSS); CSP Salihu Daiyabu, Nigeria Police, Kano State Command; and Umar Abdullahi of Nigerian Environmental Standards Regulatory Agency (NESREA);
Others were Hussein Suleiman, National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC); and Adamu Umar of Consumer Protection Committee, Kano State.