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New Balogun Market: Hub Of Fake Cosmetics Products

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The new Balogun Market located within the Lagos Trade Fair Complex along the Mile 2-Badagry Expressway, is arguably one of the biggest cosmetics products market in Nigeria. The market was built over 13 years ago to relocate traders from the overpopulated Balogun market on Lagos Island. Although traders in the new market also sell other items such as beverages, wines, perfumes, used clothes etc, the market deals mainly in cosmetics products. Various foreign and local brands of cosmetics can be found in the market for wholesale and retail purchase.

When business activities newly started in the market, it was a choice destination for people as one is sure of buying genuine cosmetics products. That fame which the market was once known for, is however fading as the market is fast gaining notoriety as the hub of fake cosmetics products.

P.M.NEWS BusinessWeek visited the market recently and found that lots of fake cosmetics products are  sold along side genuine ones.

Our correspondent observed that most of the fake cosmetics products are popular foreign brands.

According to  findings, most of the fake cosmetic products are mixed with the genuine ones. The faking is usually carried out in neighbouring African countries and sometimes in China and imported into the country through porous borders.

Investigations by our reporter also revealed that the fake cosmetics products are brought into the country and off-loaded mostly in the night by importers who also import genuine goods.

A source in the market said that the reason why importers engage in the act is because  the cost of importation of goods is very high and if they follow due process, the importer will not make any profit. Findings also revealed that not all the fake cosmetics products in the market are imported as some wholesalers only import a particular brand and contract some local cosmetics makers to produce the content for them.

This is the reason why some people will buy a particular cream and discover an entirely different content inside.

To checkmate the incident, The Nigeria’s National Agency for Foods,Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) sometime ago swooped on dealers of counterfeit products at the market. The traders lost an estimated half a billion naira ($ 4 million) worth of goods to the agency when its enforcement team stormed the market unexpectedly.

By the time NAFDAC operatives left the market, a staggering consignment of various unregistered cosmetic products from agents and manufacturers said to be based in China had emerged, forming a large heap. A popular beauty product, Neutrotone Cream (White Moon) made up almost 50 per cent of the total seizure. The original product has a NAFDAC accreditation number while the similarly packaged copy, thought to originate in China, is not registered with the regulatory body.

To beat further raids by NAFDAC and other security agencies, the unrepentant importers now off-load their fake cosmetics containers at night.

Our correspondent also found that the importers also bribe willing security personnel to kept their eyes off their business.

An importer in the market bragged openly to our correspondent: “Once you settle all the security guys, you can off-load any goods here safely and sell it without any  hindrance”

A woman who simply identified herself as Bimpe told our correspondent that it very difficult to tell which product is fake or not as the packaging is almost thesame.

“I have been coming here for a long time to buy cosmetics products.Really there are fake products here and it is difficult to tell which one is fake or not. The packing is almost the same.” sometime if you observe the packs well enough, you could tell the fake of a particular product.  But it doesn’t always work that way because the container maybe the same but the content is fake”

“What I do is to just stay with one importer I know very well that he does not deal in fakes,” she added.

Reacting to the problem, president of the Balogun Business Association, said it is true that there are importers in the market who import fake cosmetic products but that it was wrong to say that the new Balogun Market is filled with fake products.

cosmetics shopOgbonnia said  the criteria which NAFDAC uses to adjudge a product as fake or not is questionable since the agency brands any product not registered with it as fake.

“I cannot categorically say that we don’t bring  unregistered products into the market, but we are making efforts to ensure that our members register any product they bring in, and I’m happy many of them have done that. We still have some small boys who bring in registered products along with unregistered ones but they know they are taking a risk. If they are caught, they face the wrath of the law and we don’t encourage such.

“We are sensitising our people and have been able to transform our business to meet up with the government’s directive. However, those products in question are recognised all over the world but the only problem is that it is not in the record of NAFDAC as registered products.

There’s no fake product in the market as claimed by NAFDAC, rather, maybe it has not been registered. And so we are dealing with different articles of trade or products and there is nowhere you register every product.

—Henry Ojelu & Cyracius Izuekwe

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Posted in Nigeria News.

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Nigeria News

Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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Nigeria News

COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Nigeria News

Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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