A factory in Onitsha, Anambra State, allegedly manufacturing substandard products has been discovered and sealed by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
A team from SON had come to the company after assessment of the company’s products showed they were substandard.
They also arrested the Managing Director of the company, who had tried to hie from the officials and his Chinese accomplice.
Leading the SON team was the Director of Operations, Mr Felix Nyado, who maintained that any company that failed to adhere to the production standard and requirements of SON would only be giving automatic approval to the regulatory body to stop the production of such substandard product, stop its circulation, make seizures and destroy such product as well as prosecute the owners of the company.
Officials of the agency stormed Bendusco International Agency Limited, Onitsha, where products like toothbrush, shaving stick and other items were produced. The factory by all standards was poor by outward appearance.
Incidentally, several workers were in the employ of the Managing Director (MD), Mr Benjamin Nwizu, who the workers said owed them three month’s salary.
The MD on hearing the voices of the raid team climbed the roof space and hid himself, but his Chinese accomplice, Ning Tiangdon, was not as lucky as he was arrested.
A thorough search was carried out in which several other products with different brand names were found in the factory suggestive of counterfeiting activities.
Several Substandard Products
The Director of Operations of SON decried the shady activities of the factory which he said was harmful to public health due to the poor quality of the products being produced in the factory.
He said: “The quality of the blade is the safety component of this product. If the blade is not made of the right material, especially the standard which specified that it must be made of platinum, this blade is not made of platinum, and if you use it, you get a lot of bumps around the jaw.
“And for those who are not very careful, or who don’t use aftershave, one starts having permanent marks on the body”.
Mr Nyado continued with showing the products with different brand names.
“Here are all manner of labels. This one is Dorko and this one is Zorik. The same type of material, he puts it any label.”
According to Mr Nyado, the act establishing the standards enforcement agency allows it to advice companies to produce according to a required standard and specification.
Several of the fake and substandard products worth millions of Naira were evacuated with three trucks while the Managing Director was later brought down from the roof space and subsequently arrested.
Upon his arrest, he denied that his company was producing fake products and said that his company had dragged SON to court as well as to the National Assembly which he claimed had ordered SON never to disturb or make seizures from his company.
Mr Nwizu said: “On the 12th of this month (December), the National Assembly ordered our company and SON with respect to disobedience of court order.
“The summons is here with me to appear before the panel. I was there, and then the Director of Legal Department of SON called Kawu was there. Then at the end of the day, the National Assembly ordered them that they should not for any reason come to the factory, or disturb the factory or arrest any of the workers and failing to do so, that they are going to enter into trouble”.
But Mr Nyado maintained that the National Assembly could not go against a regulatory agency set up by the law and that SON must continue to ensure the safety of the members of the public by carrying out their functions.
“If he says he has procured any act to continually produce substandard products and feel that he can go to court and get the act of the court to stop it, for goodness sake, he is just wasting his time because, we must protect the masses and the major thing about the law is that the masses must be protected and that is what we have done.
“If you take an example of this, you cannot be manufacturing a substandard product and you are stocking it in the brand name of other people and you say you have an order from the National Assembly that SON should not follow the status quo, that is not done anywhere in the world,” he told reporters.
According to Mr Nyado, the company was also noted for producing their products with recycled materials as evidences of used plastic materials gathered from junk bins littered everywhere.
The SON raid team advised the workers to be calm and go home for good while the company was sealed and the Managing Director and his Chinese accomplice handed over to the police for onward prosecution.