How Our Toothpastes & Certain Body-Care Products Sell Themselves Out Of Patronage With The Nigeria Consumers -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

While we are most critical about government and its policies as well as how these affected the masses, it is equally important that we begin to call certain organization’s to order with respect to products they exchanged for the hard-earned resources of the Nigerian people that are mostly substandard. These days, it has become a common experience with most Nigerians to part with their monies for tooth and body care products that cannot give value for money.

Very recently in the city of Abuja, a lady talked to me about a health seminar cum business opportunity she was putting together but what endeared me in that conversation was her obvious concern about the sub-standardization of body-care products particularly the several toothpastes that are in the market today. She is not a medical person but passion made her to notice that something was not just right with the current trend in the body-care industry.

How can someone brush consistently over a period of time yet suffer from mouth odor? Have the Nigerian people grown so poor that they cannot afford good enough toothpastes? There is one way of trying to answer these questions and that is that the trouble is about our mentality of greed. I have grown to discover that the quality of products in this country does not depend on the product’s price. In fact, many substandard products are today priced more costly than the quality ones.

Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

We have grown with the mindset that ‘Better soup, na money cook am’; hence have created a system by which exploitation thrived. If a person spent a minimum of 250 or 350 naira for toothpaste and still suffered mouth odor, chances are that if they spent more the mouth odor would not go away. Now, I ask: Is 300 naira too poor a price for quality toothpaste given our enormous market population, the state of our economy and the strength of the naira? Have we not seen foreign books that are sold at $4.99 per copy?

They are sold at that rate because of the economic system in their country yet the quality of print is never shortchanged. We sell items here at a far higher amount in terms of the figure yet consumers are constantly denied the benefit of enjoying value for the amount they paid. This kind of system does not last for too long before such companies fold up. Instead of putting the people first, many companies delight (as a corporate rule) to put their greed first. Little wonder businesses find it hard to survive here.

The culture of precision is not there neither do we have people who are willing to sacrifice by creating First World standards as modus operandi. The art of business is like the art of leadership and it is purely about influence. You don’t stop been the seller of a worthy product after you think you’ve built a customer base just like you don’t stop leading by example after you’ve built followership. This is because the moment you begin to take people for granted; sales begins to drop immediately.

Check around you and you’d find that the richest manufacturers who are even competitive globally are those who understood the value of people’s trust for their products and do not take it for granted. We sell these craps to people as if to say we would do a return if we bought a Microsoft product that failed to satisfy us. Poverty and failed businesses abound because people are no longer concerned about repeat sales. Their ventures have turned into a hit-and-run enterprise where customers are not expected to repeat after they buy.

Tell me, if salt loses its taste; of what good is it again? These days I feel strongly against buying body-care products like Dettol, Oral-B and co. – those products that spend many minutes on air everyday – because they are the products that are indeed without any value. Try disinfectants like Roberts and compare the value you get with the ones on air. Yet you never get to see Roberts on your television. I am also reminded that so long as Roberts made profit, selling quality products the likes of Close-up and Oral-B have no excuse at all.

They have no reason to keep selling junks to the Nigerian consumer. The collaboration of silence and inaction between the Dental Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Medical Association seems to enjoy the blessing of the Consumer Rights Protection Board. Nigerians in their millions now suffer from one form of toothache or another; soon toothache would become a national emergency whereas relevant authorities vested with requisite powers to act has always being on ground and doing nothing but watch.

As a Counselor – one who specializes in giving counsel to government of nations – I have seen how a people’s mindset either moved them up and forward nonstop or down and backward nonstop to say with authority that the Nigerian society has attained peak progress already and was on the decline now so long as the mindset of greed continued to thrive. Why shouldn’t Nigerians be treated with respect? Is it not the same money (or is it paper) that the Americans paid to buy body care products that Nigerians also paid?

Or is it because the president of Nigeria and indeed the ruling elites took care of their bodies with quality products from abroad? That emboldens the likes of Unilever to deliver nonsense to the Nigerian consumers in the name of body care products. If they claimed the business environment was too harsh here; why are they still around? Why do they collect our monies and sell junks to us? Perhaps, they need to understand that henceforth junk products will exchange for paper or fake naira bills!

Even though they sell themselves out of patronage eventually, I fail to be consoled especially when I talk to people with terrible mouth odors. Our leaders are indeed great fools; such as can only be found in Third World countries! It mattered little that they have travelled abroad severally and bought items from there. To say that these products no longer serviced our needs but rather serviced what these companies thought was our need – which is affordable prices – is to state the obvious. For over 3 decades, sales in the US have gone from cheapening the price of products to understanding the need of a consumer.

And you find out that the system created a win-win situation for both the sales company and the consumer. Not like what we have here where hiding under the guise of price, worthless items are flooding the market under the watchful eyes of the SON, NAFDAC, CRPB, NMA to mention a few. Because the Nigerian people insisted on affordable prices; therefore it becomes yardstick for exploitation. I know folks who even use both the hard and the soft brush at the time everyday in their effort to fight tooth decay and mouth odor.

I think I have to say this; we in the vanguard for attitudinal transformation are at the moment concerned with government efficiency but soon we are coming after companies and importers that specialized in doing dirty businesses. Therefore, UNILEVER, PROCTOR & GAMBLE enjoy all the time that you’ve got now and keep gambling with the teeth of the Nigerian people because you will soon cough out the kind of fines that MTN just coughed out that made Diamond Bank Plc to crumble. Keep selling junks OK, until pay day.

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh is an advocate for attitudinal change, a researcher and authored (THE ORIGIN OF IGBO MARGINALIZATION IN NIGERIA). 08062577718.