The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), has sealed a plaza at the Trade Fair Complex, Lagos State, over adulteration of lubricant products.
SON’s Director General Mallam Farouk Salim said the move was to guard against flooding the market with fake lubricants, which could lead to accidents and machine breakdown.
The director general, who was represented at the Seal Off exercise by SON’s Coordinator of Surveillance, Intelligence and Monitoring (SIM) Unit Isa Sulieman stressed the regulator’s commitment to the production of quality locally manufactured lubricants.
Lubricants and packaging materials worth millions were seized during the operation. But two suspects caught in the act and others escaped.
“What we have seen so far is that there are quite a lot of locations where this activity is going on and we have seized the products we saw and have also made some arrests. This is a very big problem and SON is very interested. We have also been directed to bring this act to the barest minimum.’’
Salim promised that the enforcement would be a continuous process, and that the agency would ensure that local manufacturers were protected to provide jobs for the nation’s unemployed youths.
Chief Security Officer of the plaza Onyeka Ozorkwalu said the association had made efforts to stop the illicit trade to no avail.
“We all know that there are people faking products and we are not in support of this trade. We have reported to the police to deter them from this kind of business,” Ozorkwalu said.
He added that the association had appealed to the people in question, educated them on the negative effect of adulteration and they promised to stop.
