Against the background of the ongoing implementation of African Continental Free Trade Area AfCFTA, which began January, 2020, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria SON, has said that it doing everything necessary to standardise every product made in the country in order to make them competitive.

Director General of the organisation, Mallam Farouk Salim, who gave this assurance during a one-day capacity building workshop for Journalists with the theme: ‘Improved Synergy to promote Standardisation’, held in Lagos recently, disclosed that the management was working towards making SON become a beacon of high quality standards regulator.

According to him, this has become expedient and necessary given that the country is currently opening up its borders, having signed into new trade liberalisation regimes, including but not limited to the new AfCTA under which products made in the country would have to compete with others from other regions of the continent.

He observed that this has placed a huge responsibility in the hands of the organisation, which it would not like to joke with, as it has commenced measures to build more and higher regulatory capacities, collaborate with the private sector operators, especially Small and Medium Enterprises SMEs and manufacturing companies with a view to ensuring global standards for products made in the country to make them competitive.

Mallam Farouk warned that the country cannot at this point given the enormous political and economic challenges facing her afford to toy with the consequences of not ensuing high standards for her products, as that would make her market a dumping ground for all sorts of products.

He also argued that in addition to making Nigeria-made products competitive anywhere in the world, there was also need to safeguard the lives of the citizens by drastically reducing the influx of fake and substandard goods, many of which are very injurious to lives and wellbeing of the citizenry.

“We want to be a beacon of high quality standards regulator. In order to achieve this, we are building both our testing and laboratory capacities. We are also going into more partnerships with state governments, manufacturers and even the seaport community in the country so that there would be synergy since we cannot fight this war alone.

“There are new African trade agreements that Nigeria has signed on to, the AfCFTA is one of them, and what that means is that goods made in other regions would be crossing into the country and so if our own goods are not of standards, things would not augur well for the country so, we must ensure standards and this is in the interest of everyone.

“Building Collapse, fire incidence due to substandard cables and other fake materials do not know religion or ethnic region; this is the reason why everyone must do the right thing, and as an organisation, we are doing everything possible to improve our systems to ensure quality standards regulation”, the DG also said.

It was gathered that in addition to addition to building new offices and laboratories for food, plants and nutrition across the country, the agency is also building more capacities for its members of staff to enable them cope with the emerging new responsibilities.

The organisation had assured that it was no longer interested in seizing and destroying substandard products made in the country, as it has adopted a new strategy whereby it compels the manufacturers of such products to take them back to the factories to recycle and upgrade their standards to reduce losses arising from the former practice of destroying them.

Recall that following the effective take off of AfCFTA on January 1, 2020, the Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiations NOTN had issued guidelines for Nigerian firms with products for export to other AfCFTA members, which some believed were be cumbersome, as it contains unnecessary duplications.

The NOTN had listed procedures and conditions for the export of products under the AfCFTA, which include the creation of bill of entry, attaching all relevant permits from government agencies including the Nigeria Export Promoting Council NEPC, SON, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control NAFDAC etc. and securing reservation with shipping or airline companies, among others.

 Available records show that no fewer than 57 member African countries including those from North and Southern Africa, especially Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and South Africa, which are believed to be more industrialised and economically stable than their counterparts in West, East and Central Africa are participating in the borderless trade agreement.