The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) says the collaboration of all regulatory agencies will guarantee a vibrant consumer protection activities in the country.
Mr Babatunde Irukera, the Director-General of the commission, made the call when he featured on forum in Abuja on Sunday.
Irukera noted that the poor regulatory alignment was one of the commission’s greatest challenges in ensuring effective consumer protection.
“The greatest challenge that I have experienced there is regulatory alignment.
“It is gaining the appropriate alignment with other regulators as far as prioritising consumer protection because almost every other regulator is technical in their space and my position is that consumer protection is not ancillaries.
“It is not a department, it is the focus. It is the whole core and the point of whatever these businesses are. So getting that alignment to prioritise it above everything else; its being time taking.
“It is almost like in a marriage, if children see that mum and dad are not on the same page about something, they will exploit the crack.
“But you see that it is changing because they are now seeing that the regulators are now talking a little more. I understand my space, I understand the law.
“But the lack of it does not incapacitate us to the point that consumers are so exposed that we are unable to do anything,’’ he explained.
Irukera who noted that the commission had in 2019, received over 30,000 complaints bothering on consumer protection through its automated system, said they were resolving issues as they came.
The director-general said that the system had helped the commission to improve on its data gathering.
He said the commission had filed criminal charges against supermarkets and pharmacies, adding that impunity was the only direction people would travel without an appropriate policies implementation.
