SON expresses concern over local Lubricant companies

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December 7, 2015 1:58 PM

SON has reviewed the quality benchmark for locally produced lubricants, to promote their competitiveness in the market.

Dr. Joseph Odumodu, Director General, SON

Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) expressed its concern over the phenomenon of imported lubricants dominating the Nigerian lubricant market.

SON has reviewed the quality benchmark for locally produced lubricants, to promote their competitiveness in the market. The Director-General, SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, during a technical meeting to review the standards of chemical related products, emphasized the need for Nigerian local products to bounce back in the Lubricant market which is being dominated by Asian products.

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“I believe it is critical we begin the process of cleaning up our lubricants businesses, because what we have seen so far in Nigeria is that some Asian countries have taken over the businesses in Nigeria and they are also making it difficult for us to achieve the full benefit of using the best lubricants even when Nigeria is an oil producing nation. So the growing demand for quality products that are safe for use is a compelling reason for our nation to strengthen its competitiveness of this class of product” Said odumodu.

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He also stressed on the standards to be maintained while manufacturing the products in order to ensure the safety of the customers.

“Petroleum lubricants are of vital importance in the socio economic needs of this nation as they touch the lives of every Nigerian. In view of the need for us to provide guidance on the specification therefore, the draft standards which your committee would work on were developed to ensure that value is delivered to consumers with safe products.”

Joseph Odumodu, who is also a part of the technical committee reviewing the speed limiting policy spoke of the urgent need of speed limiting devices in the motor vehicles to avoid accidents.

“We all know the rate of motor vehicle accidents on our roads today is staggering and there is an urgent need to curb the ugly trend. Urgent and concrete measures are required to address the occurence of avoidable crashes that leads to deliberate loss of lives and properties on our roads and most times on account of over speeding,” he said.

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He also added that this trend is not peculiar to Nigeria and lots of African countries have started the implementation of speed limiting policies and have also achieved considerable reduction in over-speeding related road accidents.

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