Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) seals shops in Abuja Nigeria over substandard materials
About 30 shops containing suspected substandard and compromised new tyres were sealed by the enforcement officers of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, with the support of the Security Joint Task Force last week at the Apo Tyre Market, Abuja.
The operation was carried out in the early hours as the Traders were settling down to the business of the day amidst subdued protests and pleadings with the leaders of the SON and the Security Teams.
Three truckloads of the suspected substandard tyres were driven away by the SON enforcement team, with a message to the market leaders to direct their appeals and complaints to the SON Management.
Several of the traders were asking why the tyres were not apprehended at the points of entry while others wondered why new tyres produced in 2021 and 2022 could be said to be substandard.
Addressing the media after the exercise, the leader of the SON team, Mr Dauda Yakubu, Director, Standards Development, stated that the action was predicated on detailed information on the prevalence of supposedly new but already compromised tyres in the market.
This, he stressed, was in the exercise of the organisation’s powers as provided in the SON Act No. 14 of 2015 to remove suspected substandard products from circulation, investigate the source and prosecute Standards infractions.
Yakubu disclosed that SON’s previous effort to remove the suspected substandard tyres from circulation in November 2021 ahead of the yuletide celebrations was violently resisted by the traders, with injuries to some of its staff and damage to many of its operational vehicles as well as hired trucks.
These he said, necessitated SON’s request to the Security Joint Task Force to protect Nigerian consumers from the imminent dangers from the continuous circulation and sales of the suspected substandard tyres.
“It was also in fulfilment of the promise by the SON Director-General, Mallam Farouk Salim to leave no stone unturned in protecting Nigerians by removing substandard products from circulation wherever they are found,” Yakubu added.
