The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) says that porosity of the nation’s borders remains the major cause of smuggling of used tyres into the country.
The Coordinator of SON in Niger, Mr Badewole Sunday, said this in Minna on Wednesday at a one-day sensitisation workshop for tyre marketers in the state.
Sunday said that the workshop, with the theme; `Tyre Quality Panacea for Road Safety’ was necessitated, following the recent inspection of tyre shops in the state.
“We discovered that some dealers were displaying and selling tyres that had expired to innocent motorists even at a high price,” he said.
The coordinator said that some motorists bought the expired tyres, popularly called `Tokunbo’ from dealers with negligence on the expiring date.
“For that reason, we had to swing into action and confiscate all the expired and used tyres for the safety of motorists and their passengers in this yuletide season.
“We discovered that the issue of taking action against defaulters was not the key, hence the sensitisation workshop to educate them on the dangers of such expired products.”
Sunday said that with the training, the marketers and buyers would be well informed and be able to do the needful to check the time of production and the expiring date.
The coordinator explained that every tyre had a life span of four years, whether used or not, from the date of manufacture.
According to him, tyres that are cheap are death trap and should be forbidden by every motorist.
In his remarks, the Sector Commander of Federal Road Safety Corp in the state, Yusuf Garuba, said that substandard tyres were the major cause of road accidents in the country.
“Deaths from vehicular accident in Nigeria were 162 death rate per 100, 000 population, this brings about economic loss and less industrialisation.
Garuba urged stakeholders from the public and private sectors to complement the effort of SON toward ridding Nigerian roads of substandard tyres.
He said that it would ensure that only quality tyres that meet the specification of SON reach end users.
“This workshop should not end as a mere talk show but should evoke actions that will be in the interest of consumers and our economy.”
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