Consumer Safety: LASCOPA seals off Chiffy Supermarket over expired products

*Afolabi Solebo, General Manager of the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency, declares the action becomes necessary to rid the state of all forms of unscrupulous and unfair trade practices, and further ensure the safety of consumers from the dangers of expired products

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The long arm of the law has caught up with the Management of Chiffy Supermarket, a popular retail and wholesale store located in GRA Ikeja, Lagos State, for sale of expired products.

ConsumerConnect reports the operatives of the Lagos State Consumer Protection Agency (LASCOPA) Tuesday this week shut the superstore located at No. 3, Oduduwa Crescent of highbrow GRA Ikeja, in the heart of Lagos, for selling expired toothpaste and other household products to consumers.

Earlier during his inquiry, Mr. Afolabi Solebo, Esq., General Manager of LASCOPA, Sunday had said in a viral video that upon arrival at the supermarket in Ikeja, following a tip-off gleaned from a Consumers Facebook post, alerting the regulatory agency and the public to sales of the expired products at the place.

Solebo, in a statement issued Wednesday, March 29, 2023, noted that he  discovered the toothpaste and other products in the store had no price tags and were all expired as harmful products for human consumption.

The LASCOPA General Manager stated that the dates found on the products indicated that they had expired August 2022, November 2022, and January 2023 respectively

But the Chiffy Supermarket was still selling the expired products to unsuspecting members of the public, he said.

Solebo further noted that in line with the T.H.E.M.E.S development agenda of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, such an act would not be tolerated in the state.

According to him, the matter is already before a court of competent jurisdiction for prosecution.

The General Manager as well restated LASCOPA’s mandate of protecting the interest of consumers against expired, hazardous and substandard products.

Solebo stressed the supermarket would remain shut and placed under surveillance, while samples of the affected products confiscated would be destroyed by the relevant government agency.

The action, he said, became necessary to rid the state of all forms of unscrupulous and unfair trade practices, and to further ensure the safety of consumers from the dangers of expired products which may lead to death without people knowing the cause.

He further stressed that the era of cheating and short-changing consumers in Lagos is over.

Solebo, therefore, urged members of the public to always speak up if they discovered such an act that negates consumers’ safety in the cosmopolitan state.