The Director General of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Babatunde Irukera, has said that it is high time that Nigerian consumers began to insist on quality products being sold to them in the market-place.
Irukera made this assertion when he paid a courtesy visit to the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai at the Government Office, Kaduna.
The director general, who was in the state as part of the Council’s on-going National Quality Campaign, which is in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), said that the aim of the campaign was to further spread awareness to citizens to always demand and insist on quality.
He said that an adherence to quality does not only offer customer satisfaction, but also ensures repeat purchase which ultimately benefits the products and service providers, stressing that when consumers demand their rights, it would inevitably bring a ripple effect that is capable of sanitizing the market-place in the long run.
Irukera stated that measures were being put in place to stem the influx of fake and substandard products which have flooded the markets, saying that the Council was working hard to provide support and advocacy for a stricter legislation that would provide stiffer penalties for sellers and manufacturers of counterfeit products. Responding, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, represented by his deputy, Yusuf Bala, said that citizens were not fully aware of the power they possessed as consumers to bring about far reaching changes in the various sectors of the Nigerian economy while praising the director general for embarking on the quality campaign aimed at changing the narrative.
The FCCPC boss later had a closed-door session with the state governor before departing Kaduna.
Other activities carried out as part of the National Quality Campaign included a visit to the Palace of the Emir of Zazzau, Zaria, a road walk and a town-hall meeting with students of tertiary institutions and youth on the importance of imbibing quality culture as a way of life.
