By Busola Samuel
In order to eradicate counterfeit products coming in through the nation’s ports and land borders, the Nigerian Maritime Police Command Headquarters, in collaboration with Halliday Finch Africa, recently held a training workshop for its officers and men with a view to acquainting them with prerequisite knowledge and intelligence to identify counterfeits products when they are brought into the country.
“Counterfeit product is something that is not the original product manufactured,” Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) Nigerian Maritime Police Command, Alhaji Alkali Baba Usman, said during the training, which was held at the Eko Hotels and Towers, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Friday November 17, 2017.
According to AIG Baba Usman, the training was organized in order to train the Maritime Police officers and men “on how to check the authenticity and genuineness of the information provided on the package of the product coming into the country, meet up with the standard of living and assist the sister agencies.
“Meanwhile, if we don’t have the in-depth understanding and knowledge, we won’t be able to assist sister agencies and that is why the training programme is organized by the command to lecture and train its staff in various regions of the country so as to synergize with the regulatory bodies like NAFDAC, Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) to enforce the laws of the bodies.”
Speaking with journalists during the event, Deputy Head of Brand: Production Unit, Halliday Finch Africa, Mr. McDermid, explained that Halliday Finch Africa came up with a forum to educate the Maritime Police officers on how to know and identify counterfeit products with the motive of preventing same from coming into Nigeria.
According to him, “counterfeit products are enormous threat to Africa”.
*Look out for the AIG Alkali Baba Usman’s interview
