The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has warned consumers in the country not to compromise quality when purchasing products at the open market.

Musbau Popoola, the Kwara Head of the SON, gave the warning in the Ilorin at a one-day stakeholders meeting on e-Product Registration, Compliance Monitoring and other SON activities.

Mr. Popoola said the organisation would soon ask all manufacturers to get their products certified with the Nigerian Industrial Standards (NIS) mark before they were taken to markets.

"Certain things will commence soon and there is a need for stakeholders meeting to intimate everyone with the new development.

"All products that are produced locally must have what we call MANCAP, the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme to ensure that the locally manufactured products conform to the relevant Nigerian Industrial Standards," he said.

Mr. Popoola, who lamented that most consumers did not know that there were set standards for all products, cautioned Nigerians against fairly used products.

"Anything that is fairly used is substandard. For instance a lot of road accidents occurred as a result of fairly used tyres.

"Let us try and put quality first while purchasing goods. When it is quality, please do not compromise because fairly used commodities have no standards with us," he said.

He called for stakeholders' support in the eradication of substandard goods in Nigeria, saying that everybody was a stakeholder in the organisation's efforts to reduce substandard goods in the market to zero level.

(NAN)