Irrespective of the many petitions which have been written by the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) on the activities of the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), the agency has vowed that it would continue to arrest containers suspected to be carrying sub-standards products along the city highways.
NAGAFF had earlier contended that the agency had no powers to arrest containers duly released and exited out of the Customs Controlled ports and borders stations calling on the government to call SON to order as it (NAGAFF) said that the practice if continued unabated posed danger to international business.
But speaking on the sideline of the World Press Conference in Lagos to mark the World Day of Standards Organized by the agency on Thursday, the Director-General of SON, Dr. Joseph Ikem Odumodu disclosed that the agency was coming up with more stringent measures against importers of sub-standard products and their agents in the country.
According to him,” maybe I will use this opportunity to apologize to those who thought that I was very hardened in our approach but I do recall that I visited the market and every time I went to the market, of course made one plea and what is that plea? That you give us time to change because we are coming with a new policy”.
“And I do not remember that SON is involved in policy making, we are only involved in implementing the existing government policies”.
“Let me also once again apologize to those whom we take their containers, these are not the genuine ones. Are we saying that we are going to stop taking of containers? No, we will not but I am apologizing in advance to those that I will take their containers and please if you are not happy about it, all you need to do is to comply with the government policy”.
“If government says you must have SONCAP, if the government says you must attain certain standards, please do. We are also saying that looking forward; we are going to the next level”.
Dr. Odumodu noted that he had no regret whatsoever for his action since he was doing his job of ensuring Nigerians were protected adding that since the Freight Forwarders had written petitions to the Presidency, he had no option than to wait for the Executive action on the matter.
“But my message to them is to stop doing the wrong thing. It is not about noise, it is not about writing petitions, it is about doing the right thing. I have never seen a place that people will subvert the law and be bold to be making noise about it. It is only in Nigeria and it will not work, not under my care as the DG of SON”.
“Let me tell you, if you break the law, if you bite any part of my body, I will also not think twice when I bite you. So, if you do the wrong thing, I will pick your products and I will destroy them no matter where they are”, he said.
He further informed that within the next four months, a policy would have been in place to ensure that every shipper who imported sub-standards products in the country would have himself to blame adding that,” this is something that will happen at the highest level of government. That is what our plan is”.
