Cement War: Court Summons Minister, SON.

Justice Ahmed Mohammed of a Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday ordered the Minster of Trade and Investment, Dr. Segun Aganga and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria to appear in court on 10th June, to show cause why they should not be restrained from enforcing their new cement standard against one of Nigeria's cement manufacturing companies, Lafarge Cement WAPCO. 

The company had approached the court through an exparte application seeking to stop the standard organization from enforcing the new standard in cement production upon it.

The company's lawyer, Prof. Taiwo Osipitan, a senior advocate of Nigeria, urged the court to restrain the defendants from enforcing the new cement standard and insisted that they had no power to force the company to manufacture according to the new standard because due process was not followed in its introduction.

He contended that the license which Lafarge Cement WAPCO obtained was for the manufacturing of the former All Purpose 32.5 cement and that the license is valid until August 2016 before expiration.

“There was no notice from SON to vary standard. All we had was a letter written on behalf of the Director-General of SON that they had set up a technical committee, and the next thing we heard was an advertisement directing the company to stop production of the all purpose 32.5 cement. The Larfarge WAPCO cement had been in use for over 50 years now and we still have till 2016, thats two years and two months, to continue to produce what we have been licensed to produce.” the senior advocate told the court.

He therefore urged the court to stop the minster of Trade and Investment, Dr. Segun Aganga and the Standard Organisation of Nigeria,  from enforcing the provisions of sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the SON Act, which create the offences relating to manufacturing of substandard products.

“Section 16, 17, 18, of the SON Act gave the power to the DG to enter into any premises to enforce compliance with the standard they have purportedly set,” he added.

The court however refused to grant the application, but ordered that the processes should be converted to a motion on notice and be served on the defendants to enable the defendants appear before the court to show cause why the orders sought by the cement manufacturer should not be granted.

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