Product counterfeiting is a global phenomenon that is as old as the world itself. Items are fashioned by criminals by using popular trademarks without their owners’ permission. From currencies to physical products, the fraudulent imitations of trusted brands and products as well as national and international assets are grave misdeeds with damaging consequences. They do this by seeking to make unfair profits through the use of the trademark owner’s reputation.
Since around 400BC when the Greek coins were commonly counterfeited by covering a less valuable metal with a layer of inferior metal and by making a mould from a relatively low-value which were filled with molten metal, to the notorious Owo Ijebu (Ijebu Money) in western Nigeria which lasted several decades and serving as a counterforce or resistance to the rampaging colonial conquests that was raging around 1892, the virulent counterfeiting activities were meant to short-change systems for personal gains. However in Nigeria, the period 1985 to 2000 recorded an upsurge in faking and quackery, drugs counterfeiting, fake currency notes, impostor-professionals, quacks in medical practice, illegal chemist shops, etc. The upswing in these illegal activities coincided with the devaluation of the country’s currency, Naira, when costs of products’ importation suddenly skyrocketed. The gradual collapse of the manufacturing companies in Nigeria saw to the rise of fakery and prevalent menace the country has been witnessing.
December 18, 2023, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, published a press release that it has intercepted counterfeiters involved in the production of variety of beverages including wines, soft drinks and consumables in Eziukwu Market (Cemetery Market) Aba, Abia State. In the release, the agency claimed the interception came after “an intelligent tip off” and it carried out “several weeks of intelligence gathering and collation of data on the activities of this merchants of death”. I have been so disturbed (and not a few people also) since the Aba market revelations by NAFDAC about the fakery of this gargantuan proportion of virtually all products you can ever think of. Not a few questions agitated the mind: Why fakery thrives? Who is really guilty? What happens to the business of companies whose products are being counterfeited? Is NAFDAC really doing enough to stop the fake products’ menace or Nigerians are just paying the salaries and emoluments of these employees with no corresponding usefulness? Can the fake products be ever retrieved – and many more agitating questions.
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According to Lokesh Harjani, the Founder and CEO of OnSpot Solutions while writing on the piece titled ‘The Economic Impact of Counterfeiting’ published by the Logisticsinsider, “the overall value of counterfeit and pirated items is pegged between $2.5 Trillion to $4.7 Trillion globally with pharmaceuticals accounting for about a third, particularly during the 2020 pandemic and post-pandemic years”. He continues in the piece: “counterfeiting has a negative impact on not just customers but on the economy of any country. Aside from lost tax revenues, counterfeiting has a negative impact on the economy by reducing foreign investment. Counterfeiting has also been linked to anti-social groups, including terrorist groups throughout the world who gain their funding from unscrupulous means in the grey market”. This position is also shared by Ryan Williams, a marketing content manager, in his piece titled ‘What Are The Economic Effects of Counterfeit Goods?’ (published by RedPoint.com). In the piece he posits that “the potential for physical harm to consumers, accidental or intentional, of counterfeit goods is clear. The results can be devastating, heartbreaking and even fatal”, and the illegal industry has broad national and global economic impacts. Among the results, according to Ryan, are, again, lost economic activity, support for wider black market and criminal networks, loss of employment, discouragement of innovation, loss of foreign investment, and, to add, destruction of the real manufacturing sector, and, again, lost tax revenue.
In the light of the above, one needs to ask the regulatory agency (NAFDAC) – and the government that sets up such regulatory bodies – how proactive are they in the discharge of their duties. Also, is the agency (and other institutions like it) established to be reactive by waiting till the damage had been done by the counterfeiters and they are reported by well-meaning third parties and the agency’s duty is to come up to mop damages already caused by criminals or that the agency is to ensure that the economy thrive by not allowing the criminals any space to operate? A look at the mandate of NAFDAC indicates that the agency which was established by Decree No. 15 of 1993, amended by Decree No. 19 of 1999 and the Control Act Cap N1 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN) 2004, has as mission the protection and promotion of public health by instituting an effective and efficient regulatory system that ensures only the right quality Food, Drugs and other regulated products are manufactured, exported, imported, advertised, distributed, sold, and used. Institution of an ‘effective and efficient regulatory system that ensures only the right quality’: Hmmn, what a mandate! I ask again: is this agency alive to its mission? If not, who is culpable?
What the government and its agencies fail to realise, and which they must realise, is that quackery or counterfeits always thrive in an economy with poor production culture. When it is difficult for the production sector to thrive, and when an economy relies on importation of virtually everything its people needs, counterfeits will thrive. Also, an environment that is poorly or abysmally governed, with less concern about the plight or well-being of the people that the political class rule over, will breed an army of lawless people.
We must confront and challenge not only the product fakers, but also the ruling class who earn and live on the people’s commonwealth, who fix their own emoluments by themselves and take as much as they can lay their hands on but fail to make life worth living for the millions they daily harass to bring out more in taxes and levies from what they manage to eke out in sweat and blood. Nigeria is a market large enough and very ready to absorb all manner of supplies that is thrown into it. Government and its agencies must rise to give the country and millions of people a redirection that is productively positive and value giving – and the time is now.
Emmanuel is a business planning consultant and founder of Leacent Incorporated Trustees, a network of entrepreneurs and group of cooperatives. He works with a team of international consultants to conceptualise and plan agribusiness and housing projects. As a certified trainer authorised to use the International Labour Organisation’s enterprise development modules, he trains entrepreneurs and organises workshops and seminars for potential and practising entrepreneurs as well as business managers and cooperatives. He also speaks and facilitates leadership and management workshops on invitation. His book, Business Planning Made Easy: Step by Step Guide On How To Turn Your Idea To Profitable Business’ is the latest of the books authored by him. Tel.: +234(0)9068602954 (call and sms), +234(0)8023257707 (whatsApp only).