SON to sanction retailers of fake ICT products, others

By Christy Dada

Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) is set to slam dealers who sell fake and substandard electronic products and mobile phones with heavy sanctions.

This is in the face of proliferation of substandard phones, computers and accessories.

Director-general, SON, Mr. Osita Aboloma, who was represented by the director, product certification, Tersoo Orngudwem, said recently that the importance of e-product registration and smartphones as a communication necessity with direct impact in the socio-economic life of the country could not be over-emphasised, so they must be manufactured to desired specifications.

Orngudwem, who stated this at the awareness forum with stakeholders at the Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos, at the weekend, noted that that the influx of substandard phones, computers and accessories into the country has made the agency classify such products as life endangering products.

He said, “All of us are aware of the recent Executive Order by the Federal Government in which SON has been mandated to ensure strict compliance to quality of products, which (phones and accessories) are enlisted both produced in/imported into the Nigerian market, ensuring quality of products, which, apart from enabling ease of doing business and safety of lives, also ensure that consumers have value for money spent.

“Our surveillance team at the agency has received information that some of dealers even go as far as cloning, faking and counterfeiting phones.”

He maintained that SON was mandating the leaders of the Phone and Allied Products Dealers Associations (PAPDA) to ensure that all members importing phones, computers and accessories into the country should within one month period commence the process of e-product registration of all their phones and accessories, in order to enable SON determine their status and have a product database for traceability.

He also urged all importers of branded phones to liaise with SON to work out modalities of factories’ inspection by SON’s officials in those countries where the phones and accessories are manufactured to certify the quality of the gadgets before shipping them down into Nigeria.