Nigeria’s standards agency mops up substandard lubricants

Nigeria’s standards watchdog, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), in its quest to stamp out adulterated products in the country has begun a nationwide mop up of substandard lubricants form the market.

Osita Aboloma, director general, SON, at an enforcement exercise across different markets and warehouses in Lagos, Nigeria in search of adulterated and uncertified lubricants, disclosed that the agency has been reinvigorated courtesy of its new SON Act 2015 to remove all non-complying products from the nation’s market.

Aboloma, who was represented by Bede Obayi, director, Inspectorate, and compliance, said the special raid was targeted at markets and warehouses where suspected substandard products were stocked or sold.

“The special raid is in accordance with our mandate that all non-complying products must be removed from the market and this special raid is targeted at anywhere we suspect that there is substandard products and this is why we embarked on the raiding of warehouses and markets where suspected substandard lubricants are sold to unsuspecting consumers in this country. We also seized cables and textile materials because we want to make this country a place where indigenous manufacturers can come and produce.

“We do not want these unscrupulous importers to flood this country with substandard products. We want the capacity utilization of Nigerian companies to improve so as to employ the teeming unemployed Nigerian youths and it can only be so when these substandard products are removed from the nation’s market. This is why we have stopped at nothing in getting everything that is suspected to be substandard out of the markets”.