The State Coordinator of the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) in Ekiti, Ayeni Feyisayo Oyebola, in this interview with the Ekiti State Correspondent Of PMParrot/Parrot Xtra, EMMANUEL ADENIRAN, sheds light on the operations of the organization. Excerpts:
Sir, what actually does the SON, Standard Organization of Nigeria stand for?
The Standard Organization of Nigeria, SON was established by an enabling Act of 56 of 1971 with the sole responsibility of preparing standards. Our goal is to elaborate on standards that regulate products measurements, materials and processes among many other things. In the line of that activity, we are to ensure that quality is maintained. We promote global competitiveness and consumer confidence. This was when products were being bought in our country and consumers are not happy or satisfied, it shows that there is something wrong with the processes of distribution, production or effectiveness of the people that are using these products. So, SON comes in to ensure that people get what they buy and receive values for their money for processed products.
Coming back to Ekiti State, we will like to know what your organization has been doing in the state in the past years?
SON’s Ekiti Office was established in 2012 with 11 members of staff and by 2017, the staff gradually increased to 18. And right now, we are about 23 in this office with some Administrative and Technical members of staff. We have Technical Staffs made up of Engineers, Chemists, Microbiologists as well as administrative personnel made up of Social Scientists and Accountants. We also have casual workers. But the operations and activities of what we do, firstly, covers factory inspection, that is, products certification and revalidation processes. Secondly, we have consumer’s awareness and programmes. These are programmes that we do to make sure that the consumers, the people of Ekiti State are aware of what we do as an organization. Like in the last years now, we have had up to 17 awareness programmes. We also had two awareness programmes last year because of the COVID-19 situation. We also have in-house screening to make sure that people are aware of what we do. We believe in expectancy. You know there is a core value of SON that says ‘EDICT’ meaning Expectant, Discipline, Integrity, Costumer Focus and Team Work. So, we believe that people should be trained for what they do. We believe in technology whereby people that are truly trained in technology or technical issues are making decisions so, that is where we come in to advise government on what it needs to do. For instance, if we are working with small, medium scale industries – what we do is that we give them in-house trainings to make sure that those people can effectively work out their productivity and maximize results. Consumers’ complaints are usually lodged with us. So, we attend to those complaints. We go for enforcement activities to ensure those standards are implemented. We carry out Market Surveillance and Market Surveys. We also have stakeholders’ engagements whereby we can interact with our stakeholders.
Like last month, we had about two with the SMS, we had with Ekiti State Government where we interacted concerning products that Ekiti State wants to remove out of Ekiti to enable them get better recognition. So, we came in like that till now, saying how can we support the government, how can we advise the process, how can we maximize the productivity of a particular town and make sure that there is ease of doing business in our country. So, this is the scope of the activities of what we engage in as an organization.
Kindly let us know if there is any time you had opportunity to picket any shop or store probably concerning the issue of display of expired products in their shops.
I don’t want to use the word picketing. You should understand we use the word ‘surveillance’. Surveillance for us means that we go to verify the authenticity of what they do or sell in the markets, you understand. And after surveillance, we now verify if the products they have in the stores are standard. If they are not, we will now carry out our Enforcement Actions. Our Enforcement Actions are to ensure that the shops are doing the right thing. For instance, if I go to a supermarket and find out that what they are selling are fake products, or expired products, what I will first do is that I will equate that as an organization.
When we evacuate, we now let them know why they were evacuated. We will now give them a little training and then give them an enforcement to make sure that subsequently, they don’t do that but it depends on the approach. At that time we could give enforcement to punish them or to instruct them, so that they will be more aware of what we do so that, to defend themselves on their attitude will be now easier. There are so many other things we cannot discuss here.
The reason why I asked that question is because over time, we have not been hearing about the activities of the SON, especially, in terms of ensuring that we have standard products in our shops, pharmacies and all the rest.
There is a difference between famous and notorious. You know, we are not notorious in a way that will make people hear about us. This is because, the work we are doing, we will not want to sound notorious to people because of the activities or the way we carry out our work so that we are not seen as making noise. It is only when business owners are not complying with set regulations that we now carry out punitive measures and actions against the offenders.
Our market surveillance has also improved. We have sent out almost 90 surveillances almost every year in the past two years annually which have represented about 37% increment between 2017 that I came to the Ekiti State Office and as I am speaking to you now, we have increased our market surveillance. We relate with the stakeholders, the consumers in the market.
Moving a little bit away from that, this is year 2021. We will want you to highlight some of your activities, your programmes to ensure that members of the public are aware.
Every year, we review our activities and we prepare for the New Year. Like in the last two years, we have repertoires on the small and medium scale. In 2021 now, we are focusing more on bakery. There are lots of problems with the bakery industry right now. The cost of production is increasing and all of them are closing down. The last two years, we focused on block industries in the state but they are now stable. The electrical sector too has been stabilized a little bit. So, this year, our priority is more on water production and bakeries and we will also be focusing more on electrical components in the market. As I speak to you now, we have electrical components of bakeries that we are going to verify. We want to make sure that these parts of our industry are well standardized and sanitized.
We don’t want to have quacks in those areas of businesses this year as we had over the years. So, this year, it is our priority in the country that we look at our use of more of ICT with respect to our new DG Mallam Farouk Sani. So, we are looking at the use of the ICT to be able to engage the stakeholders more. You see, because we believe when stakeholders are more engaged with SON, we can really understand how they are feeling and we can give what we call consumer satisfaction.
So, for SON in Ado Ekiti, we are patronizing bakeries, patronizing the electrical industry, patronizing the oil sector. In the last two months now, I’m sure you have heard about fake lubricant oil in the market. So, nationwide, there is a lot of focus on these industries.
We have been hearing about the issue of fire accidents. Is there any role SON can play in this regard to ensure that we have little or no fire incidents?
There is a lot we can do. In fact, most of our technical officers are quality health and safety officers. But under safety, we play a supportive role, not a complete or full role. But quality is our main role as well as health. So, we engaged in health equipment like the nose mask we use, the sanitizer people used during this COVID-19 pandemic – all these are being regulated by SON. So, we are concerned about the safety of the citizens. We are concerned about the way they live. We are concerned about standard and quality of life Nigerians enjoy. Also, safety issues about fire outbreaks are our concern in SON.
For the past two years, we have been giving sensitization on fire outbreaks in Nigeria and the disasters caused by substandard products. We gave two sensitizations last year. Our goal is to make sure people are aware of the disadvantages of using substandard products. That is why we focus on electrical components that are fake or substandard. So, we focus more on that. That is why the electrical industry is also a priority for 2021 because we are more concerned about the safety of the citizens of this country. There was a fire outbreak in the North where the whole market went down. It could be traced to electrical faults; it could be traced to a lot of things that are more than electrical. So, we are focusing more on those areas to make sure that the gadgets that people buy and use in their houses are safe, that they are of good quality and that they are effective so, that, invariably, there will be less fire outbreaks in our society; and as you can see from the statistics, hardly will you hear about fire outbreaks in Ado Ekiti. It is not just because Ado Ekiti has been safe but because a lot of awareness about safety of materials are in place.
What about the quality of our farm produce? We will like to know if SON has been having any interaction with farmers in Ekiti State.
We had two interactions in 2019 with farmers – those in the Agro-Allied Industry. We had training sessions for them. We even introduced what we called QMS to them which is Quantity Management System for Agro-Allied Industry in Ekiti State. We had about 900 participants because we divided them into groups. It was really an elaborate session because the intention was to make sure that people now take to methods taught them making sure that the Agro Allied Sector produces sufficiently. As it is now, very soon in the Southwest, we will be the first to make our own agricultural products on our own and make sure they are fine. So, SON comes in to assist the Federal Government and State Government. Right now, we are working with the State Government in prioritizing the products in Ekiti State especially Export Products. We engage the farmers and encourage them to make sure that the process of what they do is standardized. This is because if they don’t have a product either standard or certificated, there is no how they can export. There is no way people can be confident of what they consume from them.
So, what is the relationship between the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) in Ekiti State and the state legislature?
Well, it is a growing relationship right now. We are online with EKICCIMA; we are online with Ministry of Commerce and Industry. We are online with small and medium scale producers. SON collaborates with the government to ensure that we play our role in policy making because there are lots of policies that need to be executed. We play a supportive role so that we can have a process approach and a policy making role to play in most of these governmental positions.
