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Dr
Joseph Ikem Odumodu
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The Director General of
Standards Organization 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 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.
Daily Times report continues:
“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 standardization 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 Tincan 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.
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