The Federal Government will soon order telecom
companies in the country to effect a nationwide
switch-off of over 12.6 million counterfeit phones
from networks by using the International Mobile
Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.
This was disclosed by Dr. Joseph Odumodu,
Director General Standards Organisation of Nigeria
(SON).
Speaking during an interactive forum with Phone
Brand Owners in Lagos, the SON boss pointed out
that in 2013 alone, over N5 billion was spent in
Nigeria on the importation of substandard mobile
phones, adding that as at April this year, Nigeria
currently has a GSM subscriber base of
126,958,904; and 10 percent of these subscribers
(12.6 million) use counterfeit phones.
He affirmed that the enforcement will boost
consumer rights protection, increased revenue for
the government via taxes; increase revenue for the
genuine mobile phone manufacturers as well as
improved GSM networks in the country.
According to him, SON is working out the plan with
Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, and
Consumer Protection Council; the phone operators,
and “Soon government shall announce the directive
to switch the fake phones off the networks.”
“As more countries switch-off counterfeit phones,
the people behind this scourge will keep moving to
countries that are yet to adopt this solution, hence
the urgent need to address the situation,” he said.
He enjoined all brand owners to monitor and
protect their products from the factories
(manufacturers) until they get to the end-users.
“Brand owners have to inscribe coded identification
marks on original phones to ensure traceability and
proper user’s guide,” he said.
Umego Adaora, CPC Scientific Officer Lagos Zonal
Office, also urged the brand owners to look beyond
making money by considering the negative effects
substandard phones have on the economy, the
environment and the consumer.
Some of the brand owners reacted to the
development:
Comfort Ebere, whose company is Nokia mobile
sole representative in Nigeria, noted, ‘There is a
phone I saw recently; Nokia as a brand name and
they wrote L300 but Nokia doesn’t produce L300. I
also saw Nokia L800 and I asked where are these
phones coming from? I was taken a backed and I
went to the office and spoke with my people to
know what is really happening in the markets. When
we see a real Nokia phones from us we know. If we
key in the code and it doesn’t bring up the features
we tell the customer, this is not from us.”
Sunday Mbiam, who represented LG Electronics,
said, “I must confess that it has been very
frustrating. You have good phones in the market
but getting complaints from consumer that most of
the products they found in the markets are faked.
They must have bought it from roadsides and not
from the main dealers. We have a good warranty in
places such that in case of defaults take your phone
to any of our centre for replacement. And we want
to encourage Nigerians to patronise our dealers
and not road-side phone vendors.”
Adetola Oni, representative of Samsung, “We feel
very bad about how things have been going in the
markets; our phones are being cloned. A customer
recently reported default but when we tested it in
our office it came up as SAGEM and it was very
devastating. We are doing our best to curtail the
problem but we need government and its agencies
to help us.”
“People out there are really passing-off brands.
There is now how we can overcome it on our own
without the support of the SON and other agencies
to make sure the problem actually come to an end,”
added Eze Ifeanyi, Todal Mobile.
“We have been losing money paying staff salaries
and paying a lot of dues to the government and the
market association but not making headway. I so
much appreciate this forum and I believe it will put
things in check so that Nigerian consumers can
have value for their money,” said Prince Cletus, the
brand owner of Cletus phones and accessories.
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/telecom-companies-switch-fake-phones-networks-son/