Dr Joseph Odumodu, the Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), says there are 50 million fake and sub standard tyres currently in circulation in the country.
He said this in Awka on Thursday at a “Road Walk” embarked upon by the organisation as part of its sensitisation process on the danger of using second hand or “tokumbo” tyres.
Odumodu said that SON had been able to mop up a total of 10 million of the fake tyres in the country.
“The purpose of the road walk is to sensitise the citizenry and save lives from the use of “tokumbo” tyres.
“The use of “tokumbo” or fake and sub standard tyres has a whole lot of evil, because lives and property are being destroyed.”?
Odumodu said the use of fake and sub standard tyres by Nigerians had denied the nation the opportunity of learning new technologies.
He said the nation should not be used as a dumping ground for all bad products, noting that a tyre was no longer useful after four years.
Odumodu said that President Goodluck Jonathan has endorsed all SON operations in this regard. (NAN)