The Director-General of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mr. Babatunde Irukera, has called on Nigerian consumers to support the agency in its bid to effectively protect the rights of consumers, by reporting to it cases of rights violations.
Speaking at a media parley, in Lagos, recently, the FCCPC boss stated that though the agency is committed to protecting the rights of the consumers in the country, this, he argued, could only be achieved when consumers fully exercised their rights of speaking up and engaging the agency.
He explained that though the nation’s consuming public is becoming increasingly active in Nigeria, he however described the percentage as still a far cry from the ideal.
Irukera also charged the media on the need to support the agency in its bid to effectively protect consumers’ rights by ensuring it serves as a voice to the otherwise ‘voiceless’ Nigerian consumers.
“The fact remains that if we are to effectively achieve the aim of setting up the agency, the media must be involved. The media needs to give adequate coverage to incidents of consumer rights’ violation.
“For instance, my decision to take up the much-celebrated Pfizer case, then, at the law court, was as a result of a report, written by a foreign journalist, on how the rights of the consumers, involved in that case, were violated by the pharmaceutical company.
“That is to tell us how vital and critical the media is to nation-building, and to our efforts at protecting consumer rights in the country. If I had not read the story on an oil-stained newspaper, then, I wouldn’t have heard about the case, not to talk of the opportunity of taking up the case in the court,” he stated.
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