Ejibunu: Legal Metrology Will Enhance Nigeria’s Trade, Economic Competitiveness

Legal metrology which is a regulation guiding measurements for accuracy and fairness in trade transactions had been in the country for decades but had not been enforced across the board. In this exclusive chat with James Emejo, Director, Weights and Measures Department, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Hassan Ejibun, among other things, shares his plan to reposition and strengthen its practice in order to enhance the nation’s economic potential and competitiveness and ensure value for money for consumers and manufactures alike

What is it about the practice of legal metrology?

Thank you for this important question.  Legal metrology has to do with the science of measurement; it is about accuracy and fairness in trade, in all-measuring equipment that is used for trade. Recently, we celebrated World Metrology Day and the issue of measurement came about since 1875 by 17 nations of the world. And now because of its importance, all the countries of the world have keyed into the issue of measurement. Biblically and in the Quran, the Lord God enjoins us to ensure that whatever we sell to people is accurate so that we will not cheat them. So, this is the word of God that whatever you are selling to people make sure you don’t cheat them because if you cheat them, the blessings of God that should go into it would not be there – And who is that human being who wants to refuse the blessings of God? We used to say that if you are a trader and you sell your goods to people, even if it is one Kobo that is your profit and the blessings of God are there; it is more than one million naira.

So, legal metrology has been in existence during the colonial administration in Nigeria. Hitherto, the police used to practice this measurement to make sure that whatever you sell to the members of the public is accurate; then it was excised and put as a division in the ministry of commerce and later it was made a department and it has rules and regulations guiding it as it is under Item 65 of the 1999 Legislative List of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The law has been there since 1962 but what baffles me is that Nigerians have not taken note of what this department can do for them in terms of ensuring that they are not shortchanged as a customer and as a consumer of goods and also that even the sellers of the products too are not shortchanged because it is a two-way thing – you as the marketer of the products, maybe you are buying in large quantity; where you are buying it from should not shortchange you and you that are servicing the end-user should not also shortchange the customer. So, legal metrology is about the accuracy, and fairness in trade.  

Only until recently when you assumed office, the practice of legal metrology was barely known in the country, why was this so?

Thank you. You see, there are three aspects of legal metrology; we have scientific metrology, we have industrial metrology and we have legal metrology. Industrial metrology is under the purview of the Standards organization of Nigeria (SON) while the scientific metrology has to do with the tertiary institutions- those that make research concerning metrology while legal metrology, which is the science of measurement, is domiciled in the Weights and Measures Department, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment. As I have told you, you can see that SON has been on doing its own bit – SON was actually excised from the ministry and became an agency of government and you see that since its creation, it has been on trying to ensure that things that are brought into Nigeria are standardized, making sure that whatever you are bringing into the country are not sub-standard and they’ve been working in that direction and you have been hearing their name.

But, the legal metrology which has to do with trade and covers all sectors of the Nigerian economy be it telecommunications, transportation, safety, environment and trade among others, is never known to people.

Like I told you, legal metrology was being undertaken by the Nigeria Police before that power was transferred to the ministry of commerce and it was a division before eventually becoming a department.

Well, I will say that all the past ministers of trade had been trying their best but I will give kudos to this present administration under the leadership of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, His Excellency, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, who is ably supported by the Honourable Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Her Excellency, Ambassador Mariam Katagum and the Permanent Secretary, Dr. Evelyn Ngige. The department has been very lucky to have these three persons superintending over the affairs of the ministry. The way they see things differ, and coupled with the presidential directive that they must ensure that anything that will enhance the work of Mr. President in the trade and investment sector – they’re given the mandate of Mr. President to go headlong in ensuring that. And you can agree that industry is very key in any society and trade and investment are very key too and you cannot be an island to yourself; whatever we produce in Nigeria, we must make sure that we export them and through that, we will get the desired revenues.

And if your goods and services are not in line with international best practices, nobody will look at your goods. And that is why the three principals of the ministry have been trying their best to ensure that they give the necessary support to the weights and measures department so that the Nigerian society as a whole will know much better about the department.

I came on board in August last year; I was posted here by the Office of the Civil Service of the Federation by Dr. Folashade Esan, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, to come and head this department. Coming on board, I have my own vision for the department and one of the things I did was to call for e general meeting of the department, comprising the zonal coordinator and state offices because in the department we have seven zonal offices and 36 state offices including the FCT. So we brainstormed and some of the issues that were raised were about publicizing the activities of the department and after the meeting, I had to write a report and made certain recommendations to the management of the ministry and my recommendations were upheld and one of the things was that we should go ahead and embark on adequate publicity about the activities of the department; we should engage with the relevant stakeholders that we deem fit and moreover, hold a national conference to bring people together to know about the activities of weights and measure.

Bringing out the activities of weights and measure is to enable people to know about their rights- that whatever you are doing – buying goods in the market or buying your LPG, you are going to the filling station to fuel your vehicle; making sure that your 25-liter is indeed 25 liter – not that someone will sell you 25 liter and at the end of the day you will see it’s 20-liter. That is what weights and measures frown about; weight and measures is about accuracy and fairness. Even sweets that you lick have components of legal metrology. If you buy Tom-Tom and you see that the Tom-Tom is broken or not up to the size that it is supposed to be, you are at liberty to report to weights and measure and we can take it up with the manufacturer of Tom-Tom because by that you are deceiving members of the public. You can see that legal metrology covers all aspects. If you are buying cement and they say 50KG and you see 40KG or 45KG – if it is less than 50KG, you are at liberty to make a report for a remedy because the manufacturer has gone ahead to shortchange you. Even the bottled water that you are buying, it’s not up to the 35CL that you are buying, you are at liberty to make representation at the department will take it up with the manufacturers of those things.

How could legal metrology determine Nigeria’s Trade competitiveness on the global stage?

You see, Nigeria is now a member of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) and one of the things is that you have to open your borders to all goods and services from other African states. We are in a world of competition and if Nigerian industries are to get it right, they have to follow after policy and that is why some of our industries are coming here for concessional approval because in the whole of Africa right now if you are doing prepared goods, there is a certain permissible error that is allowed. For example, if you are producing detergent right now and your milligram is not up to the approved standard, it will be rejected. And if your own is over and you allow other African nations to bring the one that is lesser than you own; your own industry will be at a loss and that is why since Nigeria has keyed into this African trade agreement, all these industries involved in the production of prepared goods are coming to the department for concessional approval because they have to compete with other sister companies in Africa and we will not allow Nigeria to be a dumping ground and we will not allow our companies to run at a loss. Whenever we receive such approval, we evaluate and recommend our recommendation to the honourable minister; the minister will now give the final approval based on our recommendation.

What could Nigeria lose by not conforming to best practices in weights and measurements?

When we say these goods are made from Nigeria and do not comply with international best practices, nobody would look at your goods. Just like a familiar narrative that Nigerian yams are cultivated and harvested here in Nigeria when the same yams are transported out of the country to Europe, they will be rejected. But the same Nigerian yam, take it to Ghana and repackage it well, the same Nigerian yam would be accepted over there in Europe. This is why the government is working assiduously through a sister department in the ministry known as the Commodity and Export Department (CED) to ensure that all these problems about the rejection of Nigerian exports of goods and services become a thing of the past. And the department has been working assiduously to ensure that; you can see that we have received fewer complaints about Nigerian goods being rejected overseas because we have to comply with general best practices and if you don’t comply, nobody will look at your goods. See, even footwear that you wear; do you know some of the shoes are produced in Aba here but immediately you put made in Aba, nobody will buy them. But they will transport the same Nigerian shoes to Dubai and still export the same back and they will put made in Italy, made in Spain yet they are footwear made in Nigeria. So, the issue is the packaging. If we are able to package our goods very well and with the kind of incentive the government is trying to give to small-scale industries, I am sure that if we do the right thing, Nigeria will get it right and we will be able to surmount this issue of rejection of Nigerian goods.

So far, what has your department done in terms of enforcing compliance in the area of legal metrology to ensure that sellers and services providers no longer take advantage of Nigerians?

Yes, when I came on board, we took some newsmen around Abuja where the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) retail outlets, and it was found that some of them were under-dispensing. And when we saw that, what we did was to seal the pumps that were under-dispensing and make sure the owners of the station were penalized. We sealed the station and made them pay certain charges. They had to rectify the offending pump and they had to rectify the scale they used because before you even go to refill your cylinder, it is statutory for them to first test your empty cylinder and after the cylinder has been filled, it is statutory for you to determine whether they sold for you at 12.5KG and for it to be tested. This is because they tamper with some of the scales and so we make sure that they rectify the scales and the pumps that dispense and then pay to the government for under-dispensing to members of the public. And when we did that, some of them rushed to the department because we were putting them out of business, and we made them pay fines to the Treasury Single Account (TSA) before we unseal the taps and my officers in all the states of the federation embark on surveillance which is a routine practice and those found wanting are meant to be corrected and are equally fined for tampering with the scales and pumps.

You recently took the weight and measurement campaign to market men and women across the country, what do you hope to achieve, and do we expect some drastic policy intervention against cheaters?

Thank you for that question. Specifically on the 20th of May 2022, was World Metrology Day and the theme of this year’s celebration is ‘Metro0logy in a Digital Era’. Given that we are currently in the digital era, the organization of legal metrology wants to sensitize the whole world to the importance of going digital in trade transactions. You see when you go outside the shores of Nigeria, even Togo here, and the Benin Republic, ordinary sale of bananas, is being done with the use of a scale. You will see them pushing their truck on the road and if you want to buy bananas they put them on their scale and sell to you. But it is not like that in Nigeria and so with the theme of the 2020 celebration of the World Metrology Day, the minister has granted the approval that the department should go out there and ensure that the sale of meat, fish, tomatoes, grains and what have you, are sold with the use of scale. And that was why we went to the market to sensitize the traders about the importance of using a scale in selling their goods because they too will not be cheated and will not also cheat members of the public…we are writing our report about our interaction with market associations and members of the public and all my officers in the 36 states of the federation are collating their reports of what they have seen, of what they marketers say as well as the members of the public. At the end of the day, there would be a policy statement by the minister on that and it will be good for Nigeria as a whole. And closely related to that, at the last National Council on industry, trade, and Investment, held at Ado-Ekiti in November last year, the department presented a memo to the national council advocating the sale of yam by way of scale because the recommendation came as a result of the study tour to Ivory Coast by the department and National president of Yam Sellers Association and by the time they came back, they wrote a report and we wrote our recommendation to the minister that the department should present a paper at the national council and it was presented and you know the council comprises all the states of the federation and the council approved that in Nigeria as a whole, the sale of yam should be by scale. You know in my place in Kabba, if you want to buy a set of yam tubers, it is usually three yams while in Abuja and some places, it is five; in Lagos, it is one and in the same country in Zaria and Kaduna it may be five as a set…so in other not to cheat the farmer and in order not to cheat the trader as well as the final consumer, it is better for all of us to enforce the use of scale so there will be uniformity in the country.

There are ongoing discussions to upgrade the weight and measures department to a full-fledge agency of the federal government, could you provide an update on this?

You are correct. There is a policy document that the federal government has approved which is the National Quality Infrastructure policy. In that policy which involves the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and some key agencies of government which is under the chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary, Economic Affairs Department of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation; they have approved the policy and one of the keys things in the policy is that this department should be upgraded to an agency status a and the honourable minister is working on that and very soon, I am sure the federal government will approve the transformation of the department to an agency.