Beware; those tokunbo products may lead to your death

Have you been to the market lately and seen the quality of goods offered for sale? They include all sorts of lighting appliances for the home in these days that hope of regular power supply is fast fading. On sale in our markets are poor-quality umbrellas, which easily crumple before the mildest breeze. There are also colourful and attractive men’s children’s, ladies’ shoes and handbags which come in variants. 

 You will also see assorted trendy and attractive wears for the youths – boys and girls, with all manner of images and letters emblazoned on them. And there are building materials, auto spare parts, electrical/electronic materials among other goods. Their common denominator is that they hardly last; they are mainly substandard. They keep streaming through the borders from Asia, mostly China. The impression this leaves on the mind is that the era when quality goods were sold in Nigerian market has gone. Those golden days when shoppers grabbed value for every item they purchased is now history. That informs why some Nigerians seem to be finding ways of getting value from other sources.

 But unfortunately, they are largely turning to used items, known in Nigerian parlance as tokunbo, being shipped from overseas. They include footwear, clothing and household items, electronic materials, vehicle spare parts, bicycles, cell phones among others. But the Director General of Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Dr Joseph Odumodu has warned that there are inherent dangers associated with some of those products, insisting that they might be carrying radioactive waste. His sermon doesn’t appear to be sinking, as most Nigerians seem sold on tokunbo materials apparently for their durability and as articles of trade.

 Across the length and breath of Lagos for instance, warehouses where those imported goods are sold are springing up per hour. And many are patronising them in large numbers leaving the goods owners’ bank accounts ringing. When Daily Sun recently visited a popular warehouse in Ijesha along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway in Lagos, buying and selling were in full swing. A container of used goods from overseas was being off loaded while another 40-feet container of goods waited outside the premises. Men and women kept moving in and then out of the place bearing purchased items. Inside the warehouse, every item under the sun was being sold.

 Traders who could not secure a place inside the warehouse displayed their goods outside. Daily Sun gathered that to sell in the warehouse, goods owners pay the managers daily. Even customers who purchase tangible items pay some stipends at the entrance gate. In an encounter, Mrs. Adeniran who visited to buy footwear for her children and a frying pan, blessed heavens for a place like that mainly for the poor. “We thank God for a place like this,” she prayed. 

“Here we purchase items at very cheap prices. And you can be assured of their quality. Although they have been used before being shipped down, they are still durable. They are by far better than all those nonsense you see in the market nowadays,” she said, adding: “the rich also come here.” Azuka, a trader in used items at Lawanson market in Surulere said: “This is one of our major sources of goods. We come here often to look for things to buy and resell. Some of the things you see here are as good as new.

 We simply wash them and make them new again. If it were electronic items, some of our colleagues just call in a mechanic to repair and get them working again. “Most people prefer to come here to avoid fakes. If you are buying electronic items, you have the option of having them tested or not at different prices.” But Dr. Odumodu insists some of those items can be injurious to the health of unsuspecting Nigerians. “Some of those items, particularly television sets, emit invisible rays. 

We call them life-endangering products. Even toys can be dangerous. Children have reportedly picked up toys and they exploded in their faces. It is equally dangerous to patronise used clothes.” He regretted that the quality of life in the country had so badly plummeted that Nigerians now embrace everything coming from abroad, pointing out that, that was a clear sign that there were no industries anymore in the land to produce quality goods. “I think the story that tells us is that we are failing to industrialise and we have ourselves to blame for it. 

For example, where are Michelin, Dunlop and all those companies we used to know in the past? They quietly lost their market share and we drove them out of the country. In the process, some people lost their jobs. We too lost the technology they brought and the quality of life they could have provided because their employees have dependants to take care of. That is why I insist that it is us that can change the face of our economy. “Besides, what is happening today means that we need to fight hard to remove substandard products that are being dumped on us. 

We have quietly folded our arms for long, and now people are dumping their products here. We ought to be living as normal persons, but unfortunately, we are descending to the level of living subnormal life. That is why our people now depend on used shoes - used everything and goods that are substandard. Are we substandard people? That is the question I keep asking people each time I see these things. Can’t we reverse the trend? “Unfortunately, what people do not know is that there are some countries that experienced earth quakes lately and also had leakage of radioactive materials. 

A lot of those products that were affected by those materials are being shipped to third world countries. It is those countries’ own ways of discharging their nuclear waste. And we are accepting goods from them without knowing that we are welcoming waste. Today, a lot of Nigerians are suffering from cancer but no one is asking ‘where is all this coming from?’ Have we suddenly changed our diet? Or are we being exposed to materials that are harmful to us without our knowing it? We need to think.”

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