BY JOHNMARK UKOKO
NO fewer than 30 shops containing suspected substandard and compromised new tyres were sealed by enforcement officers of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) with the support of the Security Joint Task Force recently at the Apo Tyre Market in Abuja.
The operation was carried out in the early hours, as the traders were settling down to the business of the day amid subdued protests and pleas with the SON and security teams.
Menacing security operatives condoned off the entire market, while the SON enforcement officers combed the market for supposedly new but already compromised tyres wrapped for sale to unsuspecting consumers and motorists.
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Three truckloads of the suspected substandard tyres were confiscated and taken away by the SON’s enforcement team with a message to the market leaders to direct their appeals and complaints to the SON management.
Speaking with journalists after the exercise, leader of the SON team and Director Standards Development, Dauda Yakubu, stated that the action was predicted on detailed information about the prevalence of supposedly new but compromised tyres in the market.
This, he stressed, was in the exercise of the organisation’s powers as provided in the SON Act No 14 of 2015 to eliminate suspected substandard products from circulation, investigate the sources and prosecute standards infractions.
Yakubu disclosed that SON’s previous efforts to remove the suspected substandard tyres from circulation in November of 2021 ahead of the Yuletide celebration was violently resisted by the traders, who inflicted injuries on some of its staff, damaged many of its operational vehicles and hired trucks.
He said thisnecessitated SON’s request to the security Joint Task Force to protect Nigerian consumers from the imminent dangers that the continuous circulation and sale of the substandard tyres might cause.
“It was also in fulfillment of the promise by the SON Director General, Mallam Farouk Salim, to leave no stone unturned in protecting Nigerians by removing substandard products from circulation whenever they are found,” he stated.
According to him, many automobile accidents have been caused by supposedly new tyres that burst on motion and such tyres may have been compromised in the course of importation or snuggling into the country through the stuffing of four or five tyres into one to evade payment of appropriate duties and taxes to government.
While displaying several samples of the seized tyres, Yakubu stated they were due to the application of force during the stuffing of the tyres.
The SON’s official stated that such tyres pose serious danger to motorists and passengers, stressing that such tyres had caused avoidable accidents, injuries and loss of lives of many Nigerians.
He admonished motorists and consumers to pay closer attention to tyres before buying by looking out for rough edges as signs of forceful stuffing.
On further steps to be taken by the agency, he stated that samples of the tyres were earlier bought and subjected to laboratory tests and analysis before the raid on the market.
He stressed that more samples of the impounded products would still be subjected to further laboratory texts to give the agency enough scientific evidence.
