Over 250m counterfeit ICT products sold in Nigeria – NCC boss

The Acting Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, has said more than 250 million counterfeit ICT products have found their way into the Nigerian markets annually.

Danbatta, who disclosed this during a stakeholders’ meeting on combating counterfeit and Substandard ICT Devices, recently in Abuja, added that the most hit in this ugly development were the mobile phone devices, saying further that counterfeiting had remained a growing economic challenge, affecting a wide range of products.

According to him, “this figure represented about 15 percent to 20 percent of the global mobile phone market.”

The NCC boss stated, “Counterfeiting is a growing economic problem affecting a wide range of products. In the ICT sector, mobile phones are especially targeted, with some 250 million counterfeits sold annually.

This number constitutes about 15 percent to 20 percent of the global mobile phone market. Apart from the obvious negative economic impacts of this ugly trend on the manufacturers of genuine products, government, authorised dealers which include brand devaluation, loss of revenue, copyright and trade mark infringement, unfair competition loss of tax cost of compliance with applicable national legislation, national security, and lost employment opportunities.

Danbatta also noted that this unpleasant trend equally posed serious danger to health and safety of consumers and breached their privacy as well.

He said, “This menace also poses danger to the health and safety of consumers, equally breaching the privacy of consumers. For us, we are very concerned with the negative effects on communication network operations as it concerns degrading quality of service (QoS).

In this interaction, we are invited to focus our attention on the following salient issues which we brought home from participation at the ITU Study Group II Meeting and Workshop on Anti-Counterfeiting at the ITU Headquarters,” which he further listed to include, among others, the impact of counterfeiting and substandard ICT products on various stakeholders on a global scope, with particular reference to Nigeria and the West African sub-region.

Others are the highlights of the common concerns, challenges, initiatives, prices and opportunities of the various stakeholders in the campaign against counterfeiting and substandard ICT products; and examining the possible role of ICT Standard Development Organisations (SDOs) and other global bodies, especially the ITU, as part of the global comprehensive strategy and solution to curtail counterfeiting and substandard ICT products as well as to assist ITU members tackling various challenges pertaining to counterfeit devices.

According to him, NCC had noted that this developed Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF) Resource Guide for Governments that had a range of measures, include, among others: Adoption of changes in legal and regulatory frameworks, with a view to restricting the activation of counterfeit devices on telecommunications networks; restriction on the importation of mobile devices and accessories that are not compliant to industry standards or approved/ compliant with a country’s legislative and regulatory framewprk; and Establishment of necessary global industry and authority alliances and solution for validation of original products by authorities, consumers, and the sales channels.