Barth Ndubuwah, Port Harcourt
The South South Zonal Coordinator of Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Engr. (Dr) Samuel Ayuba has described compliance to standards as prescribed by the law as preserving life and as such everybody whether manufacturer, dealer or consumer must adhere strictly to it.
Dr Ayuba stated this in an exclusive interview with Nigerian NewsDirect Newspaper in Port Harcourt, noting that keeping to standards is both economical and moral.
“My advice to the manufacturers, dealers or even the consumers is that standard is life, so keeping to standards is preservation of life. I therefore encourage every manufacturer to keep to standards,as keeping to standards preserves lives. Every manufacturer should look at it from that direction,” Ayuba said.
The Zonal Coordinator who said he was satisfied and happy that South South Zone, especially Rivers State has recorded high level of compliance to standards, noted that since January this year,the State has received only one complaint.
“This simply shows that the level of compliance is very high in the State,” Ayuba said.
He told NewsDirect that though the first quarter of the year recorded low activities due to some national programmes like the general elections, SON South South Zone under his watch recorded some achievements in the area of market surveillance and group sectoral sensitization, in addition to three major national sensitisation programmes.
The Zonal Coordinator specifically highlighted the launching of the Calibration truck in Port Harcourt by the Director General (DG) of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim, which he said is meant to ascertain measurements of goods and services dished out to the consumers by manufacturers and suppliers of such services.
He described the calibration equipment as a win, win deal in that if the measurement is not right, it is either the manufacturer is cheating the customer or the customer is cheating the manufacturer.
“The calibration equipment is mandatory for all manufacturers and even consumers. It is a win, win situation because if your measurement is not right, it is either the manufacturer is cheating you or you are cheating the manufacturer (dealer),so based on that nobody wants to be cheated,” Engr Ayuba explained.
Asked whether SON has the capacity to cover the entire nation with the calibration equipment, the Zonal Coordinator said the truth is that SON as a regulator of standards in Nigeria has not done badly since inception and with the introduction of the calibration equipment, currently stationed in Abuja, Lagos and Enugu, the Organisation has started well and shall continue to improve on the feat.
He also said that the country presently has National Methodological Institute located in Enugu to train and measure standards, coupled with the introduction of authentication product gadget that allows consumers to scratch the product to confirm the genuineness or otherwise of such product.
The Zonal Coordinator said the idea is to ensure that people bringing in substandard products won’t have market in Nigeria.