Good building materials are gone.
Everything is now fake—almost everything. The chronic decline took an acute turn after the COVID epidemic. A post-COVID nosedive. The naira started to plummet, prices soared. Surging costs of basic food began to drown the poor. People could no longer make it, so manufacturers started to fake it. Perhaps to stay alive. These days, almost nothing is solid.
A 16mm steel rod now comes as 12mm—thin and malnourished, with a fake ID. The old 12mm is the new 16mm. Everybody knows. Scavengers hover around demolished houses and concrete structures, stripping away the rods, which, though old and bruised, are more robust than today’s mint steel rods. Everybody carries on like it doesn’t matter. The structural liability imposed on new buildings can only be imagined. But who cares? In the markets, every 2×2 wood is actually 1×1. When they say the length of wood is 16 feet, they actually mean that it about 12 feet long. In broad daylight, nobody thinks nobody is being shortchanged.
The new standard is zero stabdards. And the Standards Organisation of Nigeria fools the country with one or two seizures a week while actually doing nothing to contest the degeneration. SON has mastered stage theater. The old 8mm rod has become the new 12mm, promoted by the market with the tacit approval of the regulatory authorities. Because in its 2023 report SON said 70% of imported steel failed basic tensile test. But 99% of steel shops are selling fake steel. All dimensions remarkably come with bogus labels. Everything now wears a babanriga. And poor SON manages the situation by choosing naive penny pinching dealers as ocassional scapegoats
Nobody cares about standards. This isn’t just the matter of some guys manufacturing Hennessy XO within the premises of Ojo Military Barracks. No, that practice is so rife and dangerous—as dangerous as those making drugs in garages all over the country. This breed of counterfeiters have existed since lord Lugard and have proliferate since lord Tinubu . As horrible as the activities of these imitators are, they are not the greatest threat consumers face. The most dangerous threats to consumers are not rogue distillers, bootleggers in Ihiala manufacturing Hennessy using old bottles and new labels. The real danger lies in licensed manufacturers or importers of ampicillin selling 100mg capsules as 500mg, selling pure placebos as antimalarials, or labeling 12mm steel rods as 16mm , selling them in broad daylight in otherwise legitimate outlets.
This dilution of standards to make prices more affordable has been normalized. Because of this, half of the drugs in circulation are fake—substandard, counterfeit. The real drugs are very expensive. With the gradual removal of the safety net of strict standardization, folks now import half chaff, half substance, ostensibly to help the poor. Most imported tomato pastes are fake—they are less than 20% tomato, packed with starch and dye. Because at all at all na him be better. Only the very rich can afford the quality brands. All the other brands are at varying levels of substandardization. A 2024 provide by the Consumer Protection Council reveled that even the trusted brands of tomato were 60% starch and dye. It appears poverty has made us accept fakery. They are the only thing we can afford—the cheap fake foods and drugs. So people close their eyes and allow them to be sold and bought. Sometimes people just double the dosage, and that makes them feel prudent.
As a country, we have come a long, long way down the path of self-deceit. Right now, we have taken a sharp curve. I remember the corned beef of old with nostalgia. To get what you want now, you have to go to extra lengths. Good is now called special. Car batteries are mostly fake. They used to last three years on average; now they can’t last six months. Woe betide you if you park your car and travel for three months. You will return to a dead battery. Finger batteries are all useless. How can we accept this as inevitable?
80% of phone chargers are fake. Toothpaste? Fake—they clump; you have to wash them off the sink . Sardines? Fake—they taste like cabin biscuits. Biscuits? All fake, mostly filled with sugar or sweetners. Perhaps sweeteners, because sugar cubes are fake too. With sugar, 100 cubes = 10 cubes. This isn’t hyperbole. Licensed millers dilute it all with chalk and fillers. A 2023 NBS survey confirmed this, yet nothing happened. Blue chip milk companies package 500g milk in 800g containers . They say the alternative is starvation. This isnt some Fagin pickpocketing a youth corper at Obalende. This is coporate fraud enabled by regulatory complicity. That’s sad.
But it isn’t just about commodities. Beyond goods, there is the rot in institutions and souls. The lack of standardization has crept into all facets of our lives. Most of our pastors are impostors. Many of the churches are fake—nobody regulates nobody. Pastors peddling prosperity without theology; churches mushrooming without Christianity. I don’t want to delve into Islam. Nigeria has over half a million unregistered churches—that 2021 figure is from the CAC. More than half of the university degrees we mint in this country are fake. 90% of the Phds are rewards for meticulous copy-and-paste.
Nothing to do with expanding the frontiers of knowledge . But that should be expected. Many of the professors are fake. The country is full of Temu professors who have never written a proper peer-reviewed paper of any scholarly value in their entire academic lives. Its evident when they are hired for INEC duties . They regularly show a shocking lack of mental and moral fibre. Obviously, many of the judges are rotten. Besides what we see daily in purulent judicial decisions, in 2022 , a retiring Supreme Court justice confessed the rotteness of the judiciary in public, and nobody cared. It wasn’t treated as a scandal. The Justices of the Supreme Court said nothing .
However Nigeria is not doomed. It desperately needs transformative leadership that prioritizes morality, development, and the people above self and politics. With that foundation, it must digitize ruthlessly and enforce blindly. Ports must have scanners, and sanctions must be harsh—Kenya has cut fake imports with compulsory scanning. A public dashboard to shame offenders will help. Incentives for quality—India used vouchers to cut off fake medicine by 25% in five years. Schools must be overhauled to instill ethics. Aggressive rural agriculture and Agro-business support. Credible elections . Police and judicial reforms. Decentralization. Quite a shopping list. But with good faith and hardwork all good things are possible . Nigeria is not doomed. But something has to give.
The decline became steep in the last five years. It’s a tragic evolution. A diabolical darwinism . Desperation has become the business model. Manufacturers dilute, relabel, and pray the roof doesn’t cave in. Regulators are gluttons. A 2024 gallop poll says only 20% of Nigerians believe in fair play. Nigeria needs a rebirth now. Something has to give.
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