Abuja — How do you conduct your activities?

Consumer Protection Council (CPC) is a Federal Government parastatal agency charged with the responsibility of protecting and promoting the interest of the Nigerian consumers.

Some people say we are a regulating agency. Yes we are because we work with other regulatory agencies like NAFDAC, SON, NCC, NBC etc even the CBN that regulates the Banking sector.

CPC is the only agency charged with the responsibility of ensuring that these regulations and standards that are put in place by the regulatory bodies gives the consumer's value for their money because if the products and services are not right, Consumers will have to spend more than they should.

Some of the key things that we do are to ensure that consumers get value for their money, and for the consumers' interest to be protected, they need to be well informed.

You know we have the rights of the consumers and though it is changing but I know before if you asked consumers of their rights, they will tell you they don't have any right. We know by our mandate that Nigerian consumers like every other consumer worldwide are entitle to these rights that is to be respected, so CPC have the mandate to educate them on that.

Does your work cover price regulation?

At the stage we are now in Nigeria, we are battling with quality. Using Europe for example, they have choices but in Nigeria, we are limited, even in terms of services and products. For us, we are glad to have what we can see. The concern now is what the quality is. Does it endanger our lives? Does it give us value for our meagre money?

In concrete terms, what measures have you taken in recent times to safeguard consumers?

Like I said at the beginning that information is power and we know because of ignorance, some people might be unnecessarily abused. One of the two key things that we have focused on are in consumer education by ensuring that consumers are well informed because that is only when they become more alert, assertive and can even, on their own protect themselves. We put in place enlightenment programmes for example; we have this collaborative programme with FRCN that comes up every Wednesday, called consumers speak.

The programme is an interactive one where we pick topics on areas of concern depending on the complaints and the things happening both in the papers and around. We get either the sector's regulator concern with the issue or even producers/providers to be on air. It gives the consumers opportunity to asked questions and get enlightened. The programme has been very consistent since 2007.We also have TV programmes in NTA called Nigerian watchdog but it has not been regular like the radio due to financial constraints.

Creating awareness to over 140 million Nigerians is not an easy task. Having access to both print and electronic media will have been more effective like for example, NAFDAC became a household name because of that.CPC have too many messages that we can give to educate the consumers as NAFDAC did.

Other media we used in educating consumers include through the NYSC programme where we used Corp members at their community development service. That one day, about a hundred of them are assigned to CPC. Every Thursday they work with us and carry fliers to markets, public areas, distribute and enlighten people on their rights and responsibility as well as the process of seeking redress when they are abused.

May be you are aware that we have about five zonal offices right now and two will soon be open. We have South South Zonal office in Port Harcourt,South East in Awka,North East in Bauchi,North West in Katsina, South West in Osogbo and almost completing the North Central in Minna.All the zonal offices also replicate whatever we do in the head office and also do the NYSC programme.

We also have learning for life programme in Secondary Schools. We started it with the hope of eventually getting consumer issues introduce into the school curriculum. Right now Secondary schools are encouraged through this programme to have school clubs where they get educated on consumer protection issues.

How does the public contact you? Like NAFDAC, do you have CPC number in products?

That's why we need very aggressive enlightenment campaign. For now, we don't have a number but we are building a CPC that will get to the point that we need to certified products and services. We don't have the competence for approving it, the regulatory agencies have that but our certification is like an endorsement that this is good for consumption especially in areas of services.

We will start up with that area because there are so many services that are not regulated and Nigerian consumers have been very grossly abused in those petty services like vulcanisers,carpenters,electricians.People have gotten their things damaged. So we are in the process where we will put our endorsement on services and hopefully on products generally.

Apart from sensitization, what about enforcement?

We have two critical areas, that is, consumer education and surveillance/enforcements. We do proactive surveillance and from time to time we survey different markets and products, pick and test them.

Sometimes on complain too, depending on the way they are coming. You can pick areas that there might be issues. Sometimes we also go on tip off on some products that come into the markets suspected to be substandard.We work with markets executives and go to different markets routinely. Like this week, we are meeting with fish seller at Kado market as well meat sellers in one of the markets to educate them. On surveillance, we just move in. Both are very critical. You go and when you see, you take, but sometimes you also need to educate them because some people get into doing these things out of ignorance.

Recently you won a court case against some illicit tobacco traders in Kano market. Are there other similar cases that you have won or presently pursuing?

This is one of our mandates to remove all hazardous products from the markets. Tobacco products for example are hazardous on its own, and then when you now talk about the substandard one, then you can imagine the danger.

That particular case was on tip off so we carried out surveillance and confirmed before carrying out enforcement on it and about two of them were convicted in Kano. There is still another case in Magistrate court in Kano again but that one is on some chemicals binding rubbers together.

There is enforcement that the Council carried out at Aba cemetery market where most of hot drinks, juice, insecticides even peak milk are faked saw. These people will just buy empty sachet of peak milk and concoct all sort of manner of powder with little quantity of the milk, packag them and seal for sale.

Our men discovered it and went for enforcement. Right now, that case has been moved from Magistrate to Federal High court with four people standing trial. Last week, we carried out another enforcement at that same cemetery market and so many products were destroyed. We were able to go out with seized products worth of some hundreds of millions of naira but what we destroyed on the spot was over N200 million. Though the people were aggressive and even went into shooting but it was a successful operation.

Do you have the power to ban any product like the NAFDAC does?

NAFDAC has the power to ban but we don't have. Our mandate is when we suspect a store selling substandard product; we have the power to seal the premise to ensure that those products do not get into the markets. We also have the power to remove everything in the market and anywhere a consumer is paying money to obtain either a service or product.

What are the procedures that a consumer needs to take to lodge a complaint before the council and how long does it take to get response?

The very first process is to send in a written complaint or by text massage. If the person cannot write, we have hotlines and for those who are computer literates, we have emails.

Once that complain is received, it gets to the surveillance and enforcement department. They will immediately write the respondents and give them 14 days to respond. At the expiration, but in many cases some people respond and tell you that it is true and requested the consumer to come back for an exchange of product or refund of money. In some cases, some will not respond at all. At the expiration the 14 days, we send them a reminder for 7 days and if they do not respond then we summon them because CPC has the power to summon.

I can assure you that in most cases, we have used the reconciliatory method to resolve issues and that is why sometimes people asked you how many cases have you taken to court. Is not an issue of taking to court but that of redressing consumers' complaint and at least 80% of the cases are instantly within the period of response redressed but if that fails, that is when we institute a legal action either civil or criminal.

What about the issue of guaranteeing products?

Guarantee does not have time frame. It could vary from product to product but usually they are between six months to three years. I always advice the consumers that guarantee is their right. When you buy a product like electronics, you must open the package to make sure that there is guarantee in it and if there is none, you ask for it so that when that product fails, you will not be made to bear the brunt.

You must also make sure that you have a receipt so that when you return the product, the dealers will not reject it. If any seller or producer refuses to honour that guarantee, CPC comes in and make sure we get them to honour it because it is the right of the consumers.

How do you regulate promotional sales?

CPC looks out for the consumers in every area being conscious of the fact some of these promos are questionable. We know that promos is a marketing tool, a means for the producer to either promote a new brand or increase sales and by doing that they come up with reward.

Apart from the fact that the messages of the promos may not be clear or even that reward may not even get to those consumers that participated. In view of that, CPC came up with a regulation to register and monitor sales promotions to protect consumers over promos that are not clear. For example, the Coca Cola refresh and win promo, the detail were not very clear and was structured in a manner that we were not quite happy so we had to make them stop it instantly.

What are your major challenges?

At the beginning, the major challenge we had was that of a council that is supposed to protect over 140 million people just in one office here in Abuja. But thank God for the government recognition of the importance of the mandate of the council that we have been able to expend our offices to the Zones.

You may be aware that our bill is under review and the new bill is actually calling for state offices as opposed to state committee as stipulated in the current law. This will give us better outreach especially at the grass roots level.