A deadly plague is sweeping through Nigeria’s economic landscape. It is the deleterious practice of importing counterfeit products into the country. At a recent conference, Joseph Odumodu, the Director-General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, lamented that the practice had done incalculable damage to the national economy. “The scourge is worse than terrorism,” Odumodu said. The situation, which sees 80 per cent of the fake products imported from Asia, calls for urgent and decisive action from the Federal Government.
Counterfeiting and piracy have produced a wide range of effects on consumers, industry, government, and the economy as a whole, depending on the type of infringements involved and other factors, according to the United States Government Accountability Office. Consumers are particularly likely to experience negative effects when they purchase counterfeit products they believe are genuine, such as pharmaceuticals. Nigeria has been in this mess for a long time and, perhaps, it is among a few countries experiencing the most dangerous effect of the scourge. For long, the landscape has been littered with fake products, from engine oil to generators, electric bulbs to cell phones, car spare parts to wines, CDs to DVDs, and drugs to electric cables.
The problem is complicated by the fact that it is a global phenomenon. According to David McKelvey, an official of counterfeit and piracy experts, TM Eye, fake perfumes (produced with horse urine), cosmetics and jewellery contain harmful substances, which often cause allergic reactions in users. “There are dangerously high levels of mercury found in fake cosmetics, while the brushes being sold to apply make-up often have lice in them,” says McKelvey.
But while other effectively governed countries are fighting counterfeit to a standstill, our government here just throws statistics at our faces. Three years ago, Nigeria lost over N1 trillion to the importation of counterfeit products. “Statistics from a survey we conducted in 2011 showed that an estimated annual loss to substandard products may be in excess of N1 trillion,” said Odumodu. Sadly, things have not changed much since then.
At the global level, it works like organised crime. And it destroys humanity in a cheap way. The United Nations Drug and Crime Office estimated that over 500,000 people died after being treated with fake malaria drugs in 2010. UNODC said, “Around two-thirds of counterfeits (medicines and other goods) detected globally in 2008 were shipped from East Asia.”
In 2009, a child teething syrup, My Pikin, caused a national upheaval when it was discovered to have caused the deaths of no fewer than 80 babies. Two officials of Barewa Pharmaceuticals Company Limited, which produced the mixture, were later sentenced to seven years jail term each.
Even China, which is a source of substandard goods, suffered the effects when a baby formula was adulterated, leading to 300,000 of them being affected, 54,000 hospitalised and six deaths. China dealt with the scandal by prosecuting the offenders, sentencing two people to death and one person receiving a suspended death sentence.
A large percentage of Nigerians are overwhelmed by the scourge: you either buy a fake product or your relation or organisation does, and suffer the consequences. In Sagamu, Ogun State, SON recently destroyed “fake and substandard goods worth over N700 million,” officials stated. Although there is a reduction to 40 per cent in the importation of fake products, the impact, however, is no less devastating on national life.
A good example, said Odumodu, is the loss of one million jobs in the textile industry in the past 20 years as substandard clothing and materials swamp our markets. Many people have died — and are still dying — from using fake drugs. A sister of the late Dora Akunyili, a former DG of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, died when she was injected with fake insulin to treat her diabetes. Akunyili had said, “Not only was it fake … it was also contaminated and gave her abscesses… and we just watched helplessly until she died.” It is reported that fake cell phones are capable of causing life-threatening diseases. Drug counterfeiting, she said in 2005, posed a great danger to every society, and the less the awareness, the more it gains root in the system.
The cost to the global economy is monumental. The International Chamber of Commerce puts the cost of counterfeiting globally at $600 billion a year, while the Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy estimates that the illicit trade would be worth $1.7 trillion by 2015.
What to do? Pointing the finger of blame at the merchants of death or weak laws is not enough. Odumodu should take a cue from some of the bold, aggressive and far-sighted measures Akunyili adopted at NAFDAC that eventually turned around Nigeria’s drug industry and made it the toast of the African continent. First, the regulators must purge themselves of corruption and conflict of interests. By identifying the originating source of the products, the Federal Government and SON should engage the countries concerned through diplomacy. But it should go further and wield the big stick by stopping international trade altogether with those countries if their nationals persist.
Although fake goods are everywhere, Asians have not succeeded in submerging Europe and the United States with counterfeit goods as they have done in Nigeria. Why is Nigeria different? It is principally because when Europeans and Americans detect such despicable acts, they clamp down on the perpetrators. Such acts should not thrive on our shores again. The National Assembly and the Federal Government should be resolute in providing solutions.
The present law and punishment against the importers of fake products are grossly outdated and inadequate to stop the epidemic. The law provides for a token of N50,000 fine upon conviction for an importer of counterfeit products. The evil of fake drugs is worse than the combined scourge of malaria, HIV/AIDS and armed robbery put together, said Akunyili. This is because malaria can be prevented, HIV/AIDS can be avoided and armed robbery may kill a few persons at a time, but counterfeit/fake drugs kill en masse.
Consequently, the law should be quickly amended by the federal parliament, in line with the new realities, while embargoes should be placed on countries that persistently violate our national integrity with compromised goods. The Federal Government should empower the agencies in charge of monitoring imports like SON, Nigerian Customs Service and the Police to do a thorough job of ridding the country of substandard products.
