- Nigeria must do more to combat re-packaging of expired products
The discovery of a large amount of expired consumer goods being repackaged for sale in two four-storey blocks of flats in Kirikiri, Lagos, points to how extensive the despicable trade in products unfit for human consumption is in Nigeria.
The discovery was made by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), which was acting on a tip-off from concerned Nigerians. The eight apartments were filled to overflowing with a huge variety of consumer products, including personal hygiene products, beauty creams and baby products.
The apartments were, in effect, warehouses where wrappings and packages bearing old expiry dates were replaced with new ones set well into the future. The alleged culprit is a well-known wholesaler and distributor of consumer products, and is likely to have exploited his extensive network to shops and supermarkets across the nation to perpetuate his nefarious activities.
It is difficult to over-estimate the inhumanity of the trade in expired products. Many goods become harmful if not downright toxic when they reach their statutory expiry dates; selling them to an unsuspecting public amounts to virtual mass-poisoning. Since most of these goods are sold in heavily-patronised markets and shops all over the country, it is difficult for customers to suspect that anything is amiss.
The extensive planning which goes into repackaging expired goods for resale is a grim testimony to the cold-blooded cruelty of those who perpetrate it. Careful attempts are made to ensure that the wrapping and packaging used is very similar to the original; efficient logistics and distribution processes are established in order to ensure that the expired products reach every nook and cranny of the nation without being traceable to their original source; deliberate efforts are made to suborn officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the Nigeria Police Force and regulatory bodies in order to guarantee the safe passage of such goods into and across the country.
Indeed, what is most shocking about this particular case is the way in which the alleged culprit has apparently been able to get away with his activities for years without detection. He was able to convert several residential apartments into virtual warehouses without attracting any suspicion. Dozens of trucks were able to deliver expired goods to the houses and take them away over time without challenge. In spite of the police, military and customs checkpoints which litter the country’s roads and expressways, the repackaged goods were never apprehended in transit.
None of the established procedures for identifying, isolating and destroying expired goods appear to have been adhered to. As goods approach their expiry date, they are normally withdrawn from shop shelves and sent to bodies like SON, where they are destroyed in controlled environments. In this case, there was a clear failure to track the distribution and sale of these goods in order to ensure that they could be promptly recalled and destroyed upon expiry. The collusion of retail outlets in achieving this dubious end cannot be ruled out.
SON must transcend the ritual of self-congratulation that it often indulges itself in when it makes seizures like these. Far from demonstrating its vaunted effectiveness, these incidents actually underline a troubling lack of institutional capacity. The trade in expired products is profitable only because SON and sister organisations like the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) are not making it more difficult for criminal entrepreneurs to get away with it.
SON must improve its capacity to monitor consumer goods and ensure that expired products undergo the statutory process of withdrawal, recall and destruction. Routine checks of all importers, wholesalers and distributors must become standard practice. A reporting system must be developed to enable retailers to update SON on the status of their goods. Nigeria can no longer be a country in which poisonous profits are easily amassed.
