Another term; a new song! And so Dr. Joseph Ikem Odumodu kicks off his second term of Director-General ship and Chief Executive, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) with a national call to action, saying to Nigerians in all spheres of life to lift the eyes, up-scale their games and deliver goods and services that the world community can buy. Patriotism is no slogan. Patriotism is deed – doing stuffs that dazzle the world in honour of the father land. Refrain: Competition is real and the rule is universal: Only the best is good. Only the best survive. Best quality goods and services define success and survival. Anything less is dead; dead for good and buried! And no one will remember or don’t you want to be remembered… for good? The choice is personal but the difference is there! Clear! Nigerians explode! The world will applaud!

Made-in-Nigeria For the World (MINFOW) is the spring board of Odumodu’s second term and is deliverable with global standards that cut across frontiers – quality education and research, improved soil and seedling, standard packaging and labelling, even governance that means to deliver global standard services. No business operating below world standard scan makes it or impact the world over time and space.

Back to the beginning, Dr. Odumodu took the reins of SON management on February 1, 2011 at a time Nigeria was saturated with substandard goods and buying second hand was matter of course. From mechanics to electricians, from factory floors to retail lines, Nigerians glorified the better bargain in second hand products. It was not bad enough that 85 per cent of consumer goods were substandard; the real heartbreaker was the fact that Nigerians did not care a hoot paying hard-earned monies to buy death – sometimes expensive death!

“Poverty is not how little money one has. No. Poverty comes from little minds. Two persons can be looking at one thing and one of them sees opportunity and the other sees challenges. Two manufacturers can be producing same product but with different mind sets. One of them wants quick money and the other is passionate about quality products that the world will respect and patronize and that decide how far each will go! Boundaries are artificial. Men are limited only by our visions and values” Odumodu declared.

His first term could be summed under the Six-Point Agenda he set on assuming office – Consumer Engagement, Media Engagement, Compliance Monitoring, Capacity Building, Global Relevance and Competitiveness of Made-In-Nigeria goods. In for a and group discussions he likened SON to an emergency patient that a conscientious medical team must first stabilise before going into proper diagnoses of the ailment and due medications. And so the team worked with vigour, stabilised and set the proper direction and operational templates for delivering on the agency’s mandate: enumerate standards and ensure that quality products and services rule the Nigerian markets towards making the nation an active player in the international arena.

However, Odumodu knew that the long term solution to the issue of substandard is to evolve a quality culture anchored on a robust quality infrastructure (standards, metrology, test laboratories, accreditation, technical regulation etc.) and guided by a National Quality Policy. Nigeria owes him accolades for pioneering this silent revolution.

By three years, consumer awareness was nurtured from about zero to above 60 per cent through multi media – two television documentaries one of which continues to run while the other ran a full quarter across the geopolitical zones; regular media interactions, annual and periodic chitchats with reporters, radio presentations, visits to media houses and unprecedented newspapers coverage. Under consumer engagement, SON set up consumer desks at Alaba International market and the Computer Village, Ikeja to enlighten buyers and monitor products in general. On one occasion, SON successfully helped a buyer get replacement for a faulty new vehicle.

Though the entire consumer market was awash with substandard products, SON decided to face life-threatening products. Thus the agency’s monitoring teams descended on the popular tokumbo tyre markets that ran from Ladipo, Lagos, to Onitsha in Anambra and to Calabar. And in one raid at Ladipo, SON officials carted away 50 truck-loads of used vehicle tyres that end-users knew nothing about the grave dangers everyone eagerly patronized in diverse ways.

From Abia to Rivers and from Kaduna to Niger States, SON inspectors made surprise visits and sealed offices where substandard goods were produced or warehoused. Increasingly, importers and manufacturers started to give information that the agency used to arrest and seize several container loads of contrabands. In particular, cables and wire, electrical, electronics and bulbs were seized and destroyed.

While SON was dealing head on with the merchants of substandard goods, it was working hard in other facets that had encumbered quality assurance regime in the nation.

The law and therewith the punishment against fake and substandard products are more of encouragement than deterrent. SON therefore sponsored a new legislation to arm it to deliver on the mandate. The new bill which had been passed by the House of Reps has also passed the second reading by the Senate and will give SON power to prosecute which it lacked and which made its efforts on arrests and seizures worthless.

By two years in office, Odumodu brought substandard products prevalence below 45 per cent. Although that could have been bettered had the agency the capacity to destroy seized products, SON was obliged to begin taking facilities development seriously. The agency had no accredited test lab so that it lacked the capacity to certify products as such and depended entirely on foreign laboratories. In time, Odumodu refurbished the Enugu Mechanical lab as also the Kaduna lab. More heart warming are the two newly WHO accredited labs in Lekki, Lagos.

While presenting the WHO/ILAC certificates to Trade and Investment Minister, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, Dr. Odumodu said that with the Lekki labs, Nigeria now has capacity to test and certify and the product will be accepted anywhere worldwide.

“The days when Nigerians exported blindly are gone. Nigerian businessmen and women can now export cocoa, cashew and what else in confidence that they will not be rejected or discounted. The benefits of the two labs are dual… they will serve the local market as well the international market,” the minister noted.

And yet, SON flagship lab, a four storey 20-laboaratory complex at Ogba, Lagos, which is nearing completion, will deliver composite tests on several products ranges and will mark Nigeria’s emergence on the products/commodities global market.

From onset, Odumodu set out to make SON the most facilitative government agency with the trust on impacting the SMEs which globally have been recognized as the engine of national wealth. Vitally important as global conglomerates are, the business world belongs to the SMEs because they have the fastest growth rate and labour creativity quotient. In partnership with the EU /British Council, SON certified 200 SMEs annually for two years (2012/2014) at no cost.

Odumodu proposes to fast-track collaborations with the SMEs in an integral manner – from the point of soil suitability (for crops) to quality seeds. Research is another area the agency needs support to impact more fully on the SMEs. For instance, it took long research for SON to find out that cocoa farmers use motor battery lead to fight pod infections which meant excess lead content in our cocoa that resulted in rejection. In that wise, SON is going to need the full support of research institutes which must up their games to key into the MINFOW project.

Nevertheless, one critical challenge Odumodu needs to improve on is the interface between his Agency and the user community of the various outcomes of their works. His private sector underpinning will surely come handy in so doing.

MINFOW does not sound melodious yet. It may never in the old tradition but the tune is bound to impact the national economy for good. In truth, rhyme and rhythm are not what they used to be but in our in internet age and language, the MINFOW concept is mind-blowing and can only come from a mind that looks far and sees opportunities long before others have any sensing of same.

Just imagine that two years from now, your four-year old child will ask if the school she is attending is MINFOW? What is that you retort and she looks you straight in the eyes and asks: does my school have a vision of the world or our proprietor and teachers local players? In same vein, job seekers will be asking prospective employers if they are MINFOW compatible or just another labour camp. It does not matter the business or person, MINFOW is going to be the checklist for relationships that cut across frontiers – education, manufacturing, farming as well services.

Made in Nigeria for the world, MINFOW, is a great dreamer’s child of destiny that is bound to redefine national economic fortunes for good because at the heart is the secret to the world market where only the best showcase selves and bid for market shares.

– Anatune – a brand strategist writes from Lagos.