The Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria SON, Mallam Farouk Salim has assured that the standards bureau under his watch would stop at nothing in enforcing globally acceptable standards in the country with a view to enhancing Nigeria’s economic prosperity for the good of her teeming citizens.

Speaking at a one-day capacity building workshop organised by the SON for journalists with the theme: ‘Improved Synergy to promote standardisation”, which held in Lagos, today, also charged media practitioners on quality reportage of the country’s socio-economic activities devoid of sensationalism, especially given that the country is going through some challenges, which he described as surmountable. 

The DG disclosed that on assumption of office last year, he employed the services of some consultants, who came up with an objective assessment of the operations of the organisation and came up with a robust report, nothing that he also organised a retreat where members of staff brainstormed on every aspects of the reports and has since been implementing them one after the other.

According to him, the agency is doing everything within its powers to promote Federal Government’s policy of enhancing Ease of Doing Business, ensure efficiency and remove all bottlenecks that stifle economic activities in the country with a view to prompting job creation for the country’s teeming youth population.

As part of efforts to achieve these, he disclosed that the organisation is spending large chunk of its resources in building capacities, especially in terms of building capacities by establishing offices, testing laboratories comprising paints, food and nutrition, equipment and other materials with a view to ensuring products’ standardisation across the country.

In addition to building capacities, it was also gathered that the organisation is going into partnerships across the 36 states of the federation and Abuja, which had prompted many state governors to donate pieces of land to the organisation to build more laboratories and offices, which has greatly enhanced its capacities.

Investigations also show that the organisation has signed Memorandum of Understanding MoU with four statement governments comprising Sokoto, Bauchi , Jigawa and Kebbi states, even as plans are underway to go into more of such partnerships.     It is also collaborating with importers and manufacturers.

On some of the operational challenges facing the organisation, the DG listed lack of adequate equipment, lack of operational vehicles, insufficient resources needed to enhance its operations but assured that the organisation under his watch would put the meagre resources at its disposal to effective use in order to ensure effective standardisation in the country.

On some of the challenges currently faced by the nation, which admitting that certain things needed to be fixed, he argued that all hands must be on deck to ensure that such challenges were addressed, admonishing the media on the need to shun sensational reporting of the country’s socio-economic activities, which tend to make things worse.

“In my opinion, journalists are the next to the military in terms of ensuring peace and nation building because the journalists can report, analyse, escalate and de-escalate depending from which angle he or she wishes to take.

“Three months ago we visited Rwanda, a beautiful and peaceful country now. But that country sacrificed about 10per cent of its population within three months to achieve the current peace that they are enjoying now. Though Nigeria has a similar historical development pattern with Rwanda, she cannot afford to sacrifice 10per cent of her 200million population, which is 20million people

“I know that this is not the reason why we are here but if there is chaos in the country, there would be nothing like SON and there would be no standards to enforce, that is why as journalists, you must write such reports that promote peaceful coexistence among all Nigerians and shun sensational reports that portray the country in bad light among comity of nations.

“As media, report what you see, do not escalate, there are also other positive sides of the country. For instance, Nigeria produces the best electrical cables and lubricating oils. On our part, we will ensure that we drastically reduce the incidences of fake and substandard products, since they cannot be completely eliminated”, he also argued.