By GABRIEL OMOH

The Consumer Protection agency is now embroiled in a controversy that is leading no where. It has drawn the Council and Coca Cola into a legal battle. The issue in the matter leaves a very sour taste in the mouth.

The Director-General, Consumer Protection Council (CPC), Mrs Dupe Atoki has told Nigerians that in the exercise of the mandate of the Council, following complaints of defective products of Coca Cola bottled by the Nigeria Bottling Company, the CPC investigated one of such complaints in respect of two half-filled cans of sprite and substantiated the allegation of product defect and violation of CPC Act, based on which several recommendations were made “and orders thereto issued to Coca Cola.”

The orders are that: the two companies subject their manufacturing process to the Council over a period of 12 months, formulate a shelf life policy to facilitate removal of their expired products from the market, review their traceability policy to make it easier for the companies to track their products and payment of cost of investigation and compensation to the aggrieved party. No individual or corporate can fault the right of the CPC to carry out such inspection.

It would be wrong by all standard for anyone to attempt to make a defense for Coca-Cola and NBC because there can be no justification for defective products. But, it is equally wrong to deny that manufacturing error is a fact of life in every industry and every country, including the most technologically advanced ones. What is important in such situation is to ensure that such industry is not deliberately endangering consumers and society by condoning frequency of such errors. What is curious in the CPC vs Coca-Cola and NBC case is the whopping fine of N100million for an offence that was described as ‘two half-filled cans of Sprite’ and also the regulator’s apparent preference to fight the court case in the media.

Perhaps CPC has set a new record on orchestrating legal battles in the media. It is hard to recall a court case so orchestrated by an interested party in Nigeria’s media space. Probably this is CPC’s demonstration of faith in the court of public opinion rather than the conventional courts as the case sounds rather curious and judiciary watchers expect the court to throw it out as the companies in question had filed, and the law allows for a judicial review of the decisions of the CPC on the consumer complaints in question.

As of today, CPC has not released the two cans to the company to cross check if the product was actually adulterated or just half filled.

CPC is claiming a huge N60 million cost of investigation. It has not explained to Nigerians where the investigation took place. It has not also explained the experts that conducted an investigation that would cost N60 million on two half filled cans. Was the investigation internal, which agency in or out of Nigeria conducted the investigation? There seems to be no record of the involvement of its sister agency NAFDAC that has laboratory to test products. Is CPC a revenue generating agency of government that would pass its surplus to the federation account? If not, why is it asking the two companies to pay N40 million to its coffer?

The real substance of this case is “two short-filled cans of Sprite”, i.e. two cans that were not filled to the normal capacity which is an extremely rare but not impossible occurrence in the manufacturing process. Is it the half filled can that constituted health hazard to the consumer?

Certainly this case is not about product quality or safety as there was no contamination or foreign matter in the said two cans of Sprite. It is about the cans not being full to capacity; it is a very rare occurrence and therefore cannot be a deliberate attempt by two companies to shortchange or exploit the consumer. From available record the CPC has not claimed or show any evidence that it conducted a laboratory test or to prove that the content of those two short-filled cans presented any form of health risk to a consumer.

From previous experience, the expectation is that as a matter of due diligence, CPC would have sought to collaborate with sister agencies that are fully equipped to deal with issues of product quality and safety such as NAFDAC and SON in carrying out the said investigation, especially as it relates to the level of risk that the two cans pose to a consumer. But there was no such collaboration.

Due to CPC’s refusal to release the two short-filled cans, the companies seem not to be be able to carry out a laboratory test to determine the exact cause of the short-fill. On a general note, short-filling in beverage cans may result from a number of factors including manufacturing error or unidentified leakage due to inappropriate storage or handling in trade.

The question many Nigerians are asking is, is it true that the original complainant (consumer) in the case of the two short-filled cans of Sprite is the immediate past Chief of Staff to the President? Is it also true that the incident took place in August 2013 while he was still in office? Is it also true that he forwarded the cans to the Honourable Minister of Industries, Trade & Investments who, in turn, forwarded them to the CPC with a directive to investigate the matter? Is it because of the personality involved that the CPC is doing what it is doing? As it stands, Nigerians are feeling that there seems to be a correlation between the profile of this complainant and the “passion” with which CPC is handling the matter amounting to the usual abuse of power and position in Nigeria. From the look of things, this matter had dragged to an irreversible point at the time the complainant left office in February 2014.

CPC’s apparent focus on the two short-filled cans of Sprite is not a new norm but an isolated case obviously influenced by the profile of the complainant. The council has neither found nor taken up any other consumer case with equal passion since August 2013 when the case begun, despite the plethora of consumer complaints it receives involving other companies and products across sectors. What is happening CPC? It is a good thing that the matter has gone to court, let the court make its pronouncement on it.